Higher Education Commons^™

Subject Matter Expert (Sme) Onboarding 101: Improving Development Efficiency And Course Quality Through Sme Training, Heather J. Leslie Phd, Alejandra Lizardo

Learning Design Center: Staff Scholarship

A common challenge for instructional designers and administrators of online programs is ensuring that projects are completed within the development timeframe and that course content meets high standards for quality. This paper describes a training course that was developed to meet those challenges. The course prepares Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to work with a design team made up of instructional designers and instructional technologists so that SMEs can plan their course content using a backward design framework. SMEs participate in a fully asynchronous online course with other SMEs where they can collaborate and brainstorm ideas. Having SMEs take an online …

Having Fun While Enhancing Student Engagement: Creative Approaches In Online Learning, Rachel P. Jacoby, Shreya Vaishnav, Cristen Wathen

Journal of Technology in Counselor Education and Supervision

This article explores various creative approaches to integrate into online counselor education classrooms. Creative approaches to learning help encourage students to be involved in classroom discussions or activities; while enhancing their critical thinking skills, professional development, and inclusivity within the classroom. This article explores the intention behind integrating creative approaches into online learning and offers several resources that instructors can use in their online classrooms.

Online Education: Benefits And Challenges For Refugee Students, Roza Badritdinova

Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Currently, only 3% of refugees are pursuing higher education opportunities compared to the 37% higher education participation rate globally. There is an urgent need for quality academic work to leave behind the endless descriptive accounts of refugee life and move toward identifying effective strategies and successful solutions that could facilitate the integration of refugees into higher education. Technology has proffered some hope in providing access to public education for marginalized populations. This study looked specifically at how one online education organization attempts to address refugee education and multiple barriers that prevent the majority of the world’s university-age refugee youth …

Giving Students Choice And Agency In Assignments, Heather J. Leslie Phd, Heather Herrera

Learning Design Center: Staff Scholarship

Over the summer, Dr. Heather Herrera (Instructor in SOLES) and Dr. Heather Leslie (Instructional Designer in the LDC) teamed up to design the third course in the dissertation sequence (Doctoral Seminar III). Dr. Herrera came up with a really creative assignment for this course that gave students choice, agency, and the opportunity to build community with their peers during their dissertation process. This is something we both noted we would have greatly benefited from back when we were working on our dissertations where it can feel pretty isolating at times. This post describes the assignment, results, and our reflections.