Tag: Course Design

Engage Your Learners’ Curiosity with a Course Podcast

December 6, 2023 by Cheri Madewell

Spark your students’ curiosity and sustain their interest in the course with a podcast made by you. Your students are probably listening to podcasts. A recent (2022) Pew Research Center survey found that two-thirds of Americans ages 18 to 29 listened to a podcast in the past 12 months. How might you tap into your […]

Read More
Microlearning: The Game-Changer in Modern Education

November 29, 2023 by Carlos Lopez Mercado

Welcome to the world of microlearning, where learning is not just about consuming information but about how you consume it and how that consumption positively impacts your journey of knowledge acquisition. Microlearning 101 Five question knowledge check quizzes, an infographic on the nitrogen cycle in plants, or short video tutorials on tools in Photoshop—microlearning is […]

Read More
Coyote Time: What Games Can Teach Us About Forgiveness in Learning

November 15, 2023 by Eva Grouling Snider

Video games often strike a balance between challenging players and forgiving them for not being perfect. How might forgiveness in games lead us to new insights about learning design? In platform video games – from the original Super Mario Bros. (1985) to more modern platformers like Celeste (2018) – you control a character who makes […]

Read More
How to Use ChatGPT as an Ideation Partner (for You and Your Students)

November 8, 2023 by Eva Grouling Snider

Learn how to use ChatGPT to help you (or your students) quickly and creatively generate and explore ideas. Most of the higher ed discourse about ChatGPT centers on its ability to produce human-readable text. However, much more fertile ground can be found in using ChatGPT as part of the learning process. For example, ChatGPT can […]

Read More
Gamify Your Course with Twine

November 1, 2023 by Shane Lanning (they/them)

Learn how you can utilize Twine to create interactive, gamified course materials. As faculty consider strategies for increasing student enthusiasm for learning, many are turning to gamification. For a lot of us, this has taken on a few different forms. We have either assigned an existing game for students to play or utilized game-like features […]

Read More
Lessons Learned from the ACUE Course in Effective Teaching Practices

October 18, 2023 by Eva Grouling Snider

Read reflections from Ball State faculty who completed ACUE’s Course in Effective Teaching Practices. Beginning in 2020, the Division of Online and Strategic Learning has supported a group of Ball State faculty, selected through an application process, to complete ACUE’s Course in Effective Teaching Practices. Delivered asynchronously through Canvas, this course engages faculty in content […]

Read More
The Problem with Best Practices

October 11, 2023 by Eva Grouling Snider

“Best practices” is a bad way of looking at teaching. How can we frame teaching practices more productively to encourage experimentation and innovation? I’ve got a gripe I’d like to share. My hope is that my griping might help you consider your teaching practices in a new light. Here goes: I hate the phrase “best […]

Read More
How I Brainstorm New Courses

October 4, 2023 by Sarah Ackermann

Learn how brainstorming your next course topic like a big adventure can shift your mindset and set you, and your learners, up for meaningful success. As a person who loves traveling, I often compare course development to planning my next big trip. I plan a travel schedule to make sure I get from point A […]

Read More
My Journey with Equitable Grading Practices

September 20, 2023 by Josh Mannix

Learn about one instructor’s participation in a Faculty Learning Community and how it led to a positive experience with ungrading in their classroom. As an educator, I have long struggled with the notion of letter grades and even percentages in the classroom. In this blog, I reflect on my grading practices and student feedback after […]

Read More
Utilizing Canvas for Collaborative Learning

September 6, 2023 by Shane Lanning (they/them)

Learn about Canvas tools for facilitating meaningful group work in your class. One of the first articles I wrote for the Teaching Innovation Blog was about students’ shared frustrations for collaborative learning and how we might overcome some of the challenges that group work presents in our classrooms. In that piece, I explained that despite […]

Read More