Engaging Mainstream Faculty in Designs for Online Learning Tasks

Abstract

This session describes how the University of Waterloo has engaged mainstream faculty in rethinking their designs for learning as part of the development of online learning resources. There are three inter-related components in our approach:

- An instructional design model which incorporates the availability of re-usable learning objects, while emphasizing faculty 'ownership' of learning design and feedback for their students. Learning tasks are the design focus, with lectures, online learning objects, etc. as topic and tool resources for creating task deliverables.
- A workshop series for faculty to develop their initial online learning tasks and to think through the implications for redesigning class time for enriched interactions. The workshop includes a 'before and after' snapshot to show how the workshop itself was re-organized with online learning tasks to enhance face-to-face time. This builds on work at the University of Notre Dame by Barbara Walvoord and colleagues.
- An online learning support system to embed current courseware management features within the instructional design model as an organizing framework for both faculty and students. This work in progress builds on the NLII'02 session by John Harwood and Ali Jafari, How to Solve the 'Not-Invented-Here Syndrome'.

This approach is the converse of less demanding approaches to mainstream faculty, for example those focusing on 'Low Threshold Applications'. We will contrast these approaches and discuss 'what works when'.