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Defining the Problem: Bringing Design Thinking Best Practices into Instructional Design
In a previous post, I wrote about how, as Instructional Designers, we can apply Design Thinking practices to support our work. For those needing a refresher, Design Thinking facilitates human-centered design, meaning designers design to address the core needs of the individuals they are creating for. There are five stages…
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Looking for the most seamless Discussion experience
I am looking for the most seamless way to link to/open discussion forums in a course. This video shows me exploring different workflows. You may find it useful: The video also identifies some hiccups in the platform that developers may want to resolve. These include: • Redundant inclusion of titles on Forum page • Font…
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Preparing for Back to School with ConvosWithCommunity
It's hard to believe summer is drawing to a close! As we begin to turn our attention towards the start of a new school year and Pumpkin Spice lattes, you may be wondering what resources have been added to Community over the past few months, and how you may use them to set yourself up for success. Community is offering an…
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Planning Awards
Awards is one of the most used tools on Brightspace. Using the Awards feature increases learner engagement and improves their learning experience. Knowing they will receive an award when finishing up a module or a course can greatly motivate learners. This post will discuss some techniques to create a consistent Awards…
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The Self-Assessment Tool
The Self-Assessment Tool in Brightspace is a powerful tool that empowers learners to gauge their progress, strengths, and areas for improvement throughout their educational journey. This intuitive tool allows students to evaluate their comprehension, skills, and overall performance in a secure and supportive environment.…
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Finding "Flippable" Moments in Online Learning
Photo Source: Mart Production, Pexels Research and my own personal teaching experience shows that students’ attention, focus, and energy decrease if they are expected to listen to or view a presentation over a long period of time. The longer students sit passively, the more their attention drifts from the information being…
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Learner Motivation
When I was thinking about this post, I was motivated to do some research, and wanted to share what I’d learned! This week, it’s a collection of online articles about learner motivation. Motivation and Emotion from Annenberg Learner connects our feelings to our goals. How Gamification Drives Learner Motivation invites us to…
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Accessibility and Inclusion in Instructional Design
July is Disability Pride Month, a month that is all about celebrating and amplifying the contributions of people with disabilities and promoting accessibility and inclusion. In honor of Disability Pride Month, here are five things you can do to design courses that are more accessible and inclusive for everyone. Use alt…
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What We’re Hearing from our Clients about AI
Authors: Lynsey Duncan and Devra D'Urzo In the most recent D2L Instructional Design advisory meeting, we talked with our clients about everyone’s favourite topic these days…Generative AI. From K12 to High Ed to Corporate, we wanted to learn how organizations feel about AI, whether or not they’re using it, and what they…
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Cognitive Load for Instructional Designers
What Is It? Cognitive load is the amount of working memory resources being used while completing a task. In more general terms, cognitive load can be thought of as ‘how much’ thinking and processing is required while completing a task. Individuals have different capacities for cognitive load. Age and neurodiversity are two…
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Glorious Button States in Articulate Storyline
Have you ever used a really satisfying keyboard? Stay with me here; I'm serious! I'm talking about a keyboard that has this perfect click and spring to it when you press each key. People who have used keyboards from the 80s and 90s might remember the IBM Model M. I remember it because it was and still is my favorite…
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Leading With Empathy: Bringing Design Thinking Best Practices into Instructional Design
Lately, I've been reflecting on how Design Thinking practices can be used to support Instructional Design. Design Thinking is an iterative process for solving complex problems. One foundational component of Design Thinking is that it is human-centric at its core. Design Thinking facilitates human-centered design, meaning…
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Connectivism
What Is Connectivism? Connectivism is a learning theory that emphasizes the role of technology and social networks in the process of acquiring knowledge. According to Connectivism, learning is a process of creating connections between nodes or pieces of information. The nodes can be people, resources, or technology. The…
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Brightspace Tools that Support Collaboration and Peer-to-Peer Engagement
Photo: by Thought Catalog on Unsplash In this article I outline a list of tools that Brightspace offers that promote some of the principles that govern the theory of connectivism (mentioned in my previous article, What is Connectivism), such as opportunities for learners to interact with others and share knowledge and…
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Chat GPT and GPT-4 for Instructional Design
You’ve no doubt heard of Chat GPT, a natural language processing tool that provides human-like conversations to prompts you provide. GPT-4 is Open AI’s latest large multimodal model available to those paying for Chat GPT Plus, which provides their best results yet. This is the result of Chat GPT’s ability to learn from the…
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“But that’s the fork I know”
Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash One of my most memorable lessons in how learning happens came from Pretty Woman. Julia Roberts gets a tutorial from Hector Elizondo about silverware for fine dining before she goes out to a restaurant with Richard Gere. When confronted with her meal, Julia Roberts isn’t sure…
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Top Trends from L&D Conferences - Spring 2023
I had the opportunity to attend Learning Solutions and Advancing Learning conferences in the last month and heard from a number of L&D professionals and educators. Here are three key themes that learning/content designers should keep top of mind in our work in the foreseeable future. AI, of course There are a number of…
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Universal Design for Learning in Course Design
What is UDL and Why Is It Important? According to the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people. More specifically, this means incorporating multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and…
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Chat GPT in Higher Ed: Let's Start the Conversation
Over the coming months, you’ll encounter posts about Chat GPT here, since it is a hot topic. Unesco recently published Chat GPT and Artificial Intelligence in higher education: Quick start guide in April. It's a good way to start our conversation and get up to speed on the basics (especially if you don't even know where to…
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Additive Grading
Conventional grading methods can make students feel like their worth as a learner is reduced to a single numerical grade. What if there was a grading system that equally prioritized progress and effort alongside final scores? Read on to learn more about additive grading and how it can increase learner motivation. I…
