UFIT’s Center for Instructional Technology and Training has diversified our approach to delivering instructional development services, which allows us to better support the teaching and learning mission of our institution. Experience the planning process of development and learn how this has significantly increased our impact on educational experiences across campus.
In 2017, our instructional design unit identified a significant opportunity to meet a need in our instructional development services: nearly all faculty development offerings that involved pedagogy, online learning, and instructional design were delivered in person, at specific times, a few times per semester. We expanded the reach and impact of our instructional development services through diversified delivery methods, emphasizing offerings that are asynchronous, facilitated, and fully online. This afforded us the ability to provide all our faculty members, even those across the globe, with opportunities to further develop their instructional skills without having to step foot on campus. In the span of approximately one year, our 4-person team developed 8 different offerings that are divided into 3 separate certificate series.
In the first four semesters of offerings, we have reached over 700 faculty with a 40% credentialing rate. Response has been extremely positive, with over-capacity enrollment, waiting lists, expanded offerings, and requests from other institutions to participate. The development of new programming has also allowed us to strengthen relationships with organizations around campus, including the Center for Teaching Excellence, Disability Resource Center, Multicultural & Diversity Affairs, and Student Affairs. Narrative feedback from faculty identified numerous benefits, including experiencing the Learning Management System from the student perspective and providing development opportunities to off-campus faculty. Our intent is to enhance the teaching experience, and the feedback faculty participants have provided speak to this goal:
“The general concept of accessible learning being good for all learners inspires me to build my course with more care and attention.”
”Made me stop and think about the ways to increase learner learning and retention through appropriate use of technology. Encouraged me to find time to improve instructional program development and delivery.”
“I think the exposure to the variety of possible uses of technology (virtual experiences, collaborations, etc.) affirmed my own thoughts about creative things I can do to encourage higher level thinking in my class. I think the repeated warnings about not using tech for tech sake, but to address specific course objectives, was also a valuable caveat.”
In this interactive session, I will outline the steps we took in order to expand the boundaries of our instructional development services to better serve our faculty. Participants will work through a series of active learning activities, including Reorder the Steps, Mind Mapping, and Clearest and Muddiest Point, in order to identify essential components of the development process. These activities will scaffold to the development of a plan for varying the approach to faculty development at their own institution. Design strategies and delivery models will be summarized, and I will introduce participation and performance metrics from our program. Participants will leave with a plan for how they can expand and differentiate the instructional development services and offerings at their institutions and increase their impact.