Inspire Blog Category: Research

Media Literacy in the Age of AI, Part I: “You Will Need to Check It All”

Have you found yourself worried or overwhelmed in thinking about the implications of artificial intelligence for your discipline? Whether, for example, your department’s approaches to teaching basic skills such as library research and source evaluation still hold up? You’re not alone. As we enter another school year, many educators continue to think deeply about questions of truth and misinformation, creativity, and how large language model (LLM) tools such as chatbots are reshaping higher education. Along with our students, faculty (oh, and instructional designers) must consider new paradigms for our collective media literacy. Here’s a quick backstory for this two-part post. In late spring, shortly after the “stable release” of ChatGPT to iOS, I started chatting with bot model GPT-3.5, which … Media Literacy in the Age of AI, Part I: “You Will Need to Check It All”
by · September 5, 2023

Valuable Skills for Online Students and Online Instructors

By Cat Turk and Mary Ellen Dello Stritto In this time of rapid change in online education, we can benefit from leveraging the expertise of faculty who have experienced the evolution of online education. At the Oregon State University (OSU) Ecampus Research Unit, we have been learning from a group of instructors who have taught online for ten years or more. A review of recent research uncovered that these instructors are an untapped resource. Their insights can provide valuable guidance for instructors who are just beginning their careers or instructors who may be preparing to teach online for the first time. Further, their perspectives can also be enlightening for online students. In 2018-2019 we conducted interviews with 33 OSU faculty … Valuable Skills for Online Students and Online Instructors
by · August 14, 2023

Learning Outcomes: Do Students Even Read Them?

Learning outcomes (LOs) are used in instructional design to describe the skills and knowledge that students should have at the end of a course or learning unit, and to design assessments and activities that support these goals. It is widely agreed that specific, measurable outcomes are essential for planning instruction; however, some educators question the benefits of explicitly presenting them to students. I have been asked (and wondered myself): “What is the point of listing learning outcomes in the course?” “How do they help learning? “Do students even read them?” So, I went on a quest for research that attempted to answer such questions. I was particularly interested in unit/module-level outcomes, as those are the ones that directly steer the … Learning Outcomes: Do Students Even Read Them?
by · February 2, 2023

A White Paper Series Provides Actionable Insights in Course Design

By Naomi R. Aguiar & Tianhong Shi For eight straight years, OSU’s online bachelor’s programs have been ranked in the top 10 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. How do we achieve that? One way is through collaboration between faculty and online learning design experts. Ecampus instructional designers support and partner with faculty to ensure that evidence-based research is applied in the courses we develop.  Another way is through research conducted by our very own faculty at OSU. In the Research Unit at Ecampus, faculty can receive funding to conduct research in online teaching and learning through the Research Fellows Program. In this program, funded faculty members conduct original research with students and instructors over the course … A White Paper Series Provides Actionable Insights in Course Design
by · June 16, 2022

Assessment Design Considerations for Ungrading

Over the last couple of terms, I joined a series of reading sessions with instructional design colleagues to read Alfie Khon and Susan Blum’s book Ungrading. Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) and discuss the practices and implications of this approach to reconceptualize assessment design and the place of grading. This two-part blog aims to capture the takeaways from those discussions including the main concepts, approaches, types of activities, implications, and challenges of adopting ungrading practices. This first part of the blog covers a brief overview of the concept of ungrading, its major benefits, and design considerations; and the second blog will include a summary of the types of ungrading practices and challenges to implementation ––all … Assessment Design Considerations for Ungrading
by · June 6, 2022