Open in a Time of Crisis

April 16, 2020.Reading time 15 minutes.

As an ongoing part of WCET’s efforts to help faculty and staff respond to the pandemic, today Dr. Tanya Spilovoy, our resident Open Educational Resources (OER) expert, takes a look at the role openness and OER can play as institutions move away from rushing to deliver remote instruction to more deliberately designed online courses for […]

New Regulations #3: Direct Assessment and Competency-Based Education

April 13, 2020.Reading time 25 minutes.

In case you missed it, the Department of Education finally released the last set of regulations from its epic 2019 negotiated rulemaking process on April 1st. And, no, it wasn’t an April Fool’s Day joke. This is the third and final part of WCET’s analysis of the proposed rules. Part one of our analysis details […]

What’s Next? #2: Wichita State and Broward College Move Forward on an Uncharted Journey

April 10, 2020.Reading time 15 minutes.

photo of the night sky with the words "What's next?"

Today we provide our second installment of the “What’s Next” stories, featuring the experiences of colleges and universities moving from the initial rapid deployment phase to the next phase of planning for how to deal with the reality of medium-term impacts of COVID-19. Using Russ Poulin’s metaphor, just as we have just finished bailing out […]

Keeping Accessibility in Mind During the COVID-19 Conversion of Courses

March 24, 2020.Reading time 20 minutes.

quote from text in an image: It is much, much harder to retrofit accessibility onto existing educational materials than it is to get it right the first time.

We welcome today’s guest post from Cyndi Rowland, Executive Director of WebAIM (at Utah State University) which empowers organizations to make their web content accessible to people with disabilities. Cyndi gives us great and compassionate advice for teachers and faculty suddenly thrust into teaching with technologies. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, Cyndi! — Russ […]

Evaluating Faculty Participation in Online Workshops

February 27, 2020.Reading time 9 minutes.

Example of a network analysis graph for the discussion-based workshop. Each circle represents a participant in the workshop, while the shaded groupings represent different sections of the workshop. Circles show how particpants are grouped in large circles. The lightly facilitated group is more dispersed and have lines drawn between participants showing how they interact. The Facilitated discussion forum is one tightly connected circle with more interaction.

Last week we welcomed Lynn Wahl, Instructional Designer for UNC Charlotte, to discuss how they used design thinking to create online faculty development workshops. In a continuation of the topic, Lynn joins us today to talk about how to assess a learning opportunity such as the online workshops to ensure they continue to engage attendees […]

Design Thinking for Faculty Pedagogy Training

February 21, 2020.Reading time 8 minutes.

a circle graph showing the "innovation sweetspot." Three circles labelled "desirability, viability, feasibilty" all interlapping. The innovation sweetspot is right in the middle of the three other circles.

Have you heard of design thinking? This process is a non-linear, iterative process that focuses on understanding users and redefining problems to create innovative solutions and prototype said solutions to make them even better (interaction-design.org). We can use design thinking in a variety of arenas, not the least of which is to design courses. Today’s […]

Using a Research-Based Approach – It’s Up to Us

December 4, 2019.Reading time 14 minutes.

Today we welcome Andria Schwegler, Associate Professor and Program Coordinator for the Master of Science Educational Psychology at Texas A&M University – Central Texas. Andria joins us to discuss the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and the opportunity such scholarship provides for improving education, teaching, and hiring. In addition, she discusses whether there is […]

Three Keys to Opening the Door for OER

November 6, 2019.Reading time 12 minutes.

Today marks our the finale for our 2019 WOW Award series. The WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) Awards honor member institutions and organizations that develop technology-based solutions to challenging educational needs. As we mentioned last week, we have three outstanding award winning initiatives this year: the Colorado Department of Higher Education’s OER Council, Granite State College, […]

Make Space for Innovation in Curriculum

October 23, 2019.Reading time 9 minutes.

image showing curriculum drift and curriculum bloat

Cleaning up….is definitely not my favorite activity. But, I understand a clean home and an organized workspace can be important for a healthy and effective life. Today’s guest author, Maria Andersen, the CEO of Coursetune, is here to discuss the importance of tidying up our curriculum, especially to make space for innovation in curriculum design. […]

Show me the money: Shifting legislative conversations about the cost of distance education

October 4, 2019.Reading time 12 minutes.

Online education can often be polarizing—some advocates champion it as higher education’s savior, bringing access and affordability to students across the globe. Others see it as the modern equivalent of a Trojan horse come to assault the quality of higher education. Questions of the quality of online education aside, one of the biggest lightening rods […]