Reading Time: 3 minutesI know what you’re thinking…what a bizarre title for a post. Especially on a blog that is part of Cedarville University. You would be right in thinking that if I had not attended the AECT (Association for Educational Communications and Technology) convention in Las Vegas last month. I was invited to be a part of a panel with some other Boise State doctoral students and alums to discuss how our professions changed in response to COVID-19. So I figured that while I’m in the area, I’ll attend some sessions and see what I can bring back to share. This month, I’ll be sharing some of the takeaways…
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Introduction to Accessibility Series
Reading Time: < 1 minuteOver the next few posts, we’ll be diving into accessibility. It’s easy to hear “accessibility” and think of captions for videos, but more goes into it than just that. Instead of focusing on just specific practices (which are important and we’ll cover), we’ll start with an overarching principle – designing for the whole person, and not the disability (21 Kalbag). If you base your work, whether it’s designing an element or building a course, on empathy and understanding (and good pedagogy), usability and inclusion will be “baked into” the result. This type of designing for the whole person is an element of universal design,…
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Introducing Servant Teaching
Reading Time: 3 minutesLast year, we talked about Servant Teaching through a series of blogs posts, and we’re revisiting that concept today. For a bit of context: Servant Teaching’s more popular cousin Servant Leadership was first developed by Robert Greenleaf. In it, Greenleaf established ten characteristics of being a servant leader: Servant Leadership is a mainstay of most Christian organizations, including Cedarville University, as a way of modeling Philippians 2:3-8: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though…
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Servant Teaching: Listening and Learning
Reading Time: 2 minutesI was so grateful to have the opportunity to teach a face-to-face section of the ITM-2100 Database Management course this semester. When I was assigned to this class earlier this year, I thought that the pandemic would be gone by then. However, this was not the case. Thanks to Dr. John Delano, who designed the course to be hybrid and flexible so I could adjust the course for this semester quickly. But the challenge continued … This semester I had 24 students in the class. Students were from a variety of majors—accounting, economics, finance, IT management, etc. During the first couple of weeks, the class focused on the SQL query which is fundamental for data processing and management. I received many questions from the students and noticed two major problems: “Am I…
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Four Practical Steps for Servant Teaching
Reading Time: 3 minutesI don’t know about the rest of you, but this semester feels different. It’s either the weather or because it’s a leap year… Oh wait! It’s because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Right. The overcast on the skies of our lives. As part of my duties as an instructional designer at CTL, I teach a course during the academic year. This semester, I taught a face-to-face section of ENG-1400. Much like you, I began my semester with a bit of apprehension; I had a plan for face-to-face and hyflex. We would meet one day a week and then supplement the other day with online discussion, videos, and other activities. But after a…
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The Future of Education: Mobile Learning in Higher Ed
Reading Time: 2 minutesWhen I started working on this post, I downloaded a PDF to my MacBook. I read a bit of it in my office before heading over to an event. I AirDropped the PDF to my iPad to continue reading and start doing some annotating using GoodNotes. On my way home, I asked Siri to record some notes that I wanted to include in this post. The next morning, I AirDropped my notes to the MacBook, pulled up the annotated PDF on my iPad, and began typing. Then I stopped and thought: I did all of this without thinking. Like it was normal. I was so overwhelmed with…
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How to Write Learning Objectives
Reading Time: 2 minutesA learning objective is “a statement that tells what learners should be able to do when they have completed a segment of instruction” (Smith & Ragan, 2005, p. 96). A precise, concrete, and specific learning objective is valuable to the course designer, instructor, learners, and reviewers. In this post, we will focus on module-level or lesson-level learning objectives that are subordinate to the course level objectives. We will use the learning objectives generator to assist in the objective writing process, using the who+verb+goal+condition pattern. Who: Describe the Learner When you are working on module-level or lesson-level learning objectives, the target learner must be identified for the course.…