Drawing from twenty years of teaching, I am in the unique position of someone who has designed classes and educational experiences. I have learned how people learn. I have learned first-hand the process of creating a learning environment that leaves an impact.
What follows are some examples of materials I’ve designed for the virtual classroom that are interactive, effective, and inspiring.
Social, Personal Pedagogy
In Poetry in Performance, the main learning objective is to get students onstage and perform poetry. To do this online, and to make sure students are engaged and feel connected, we use several virtual environments for taped and live performances.
Tools used: Facebook Live, Zoom, SoundCloud, YouTube
Personalized Tutorials
I discovered I loved instructional design as I worked with fellow instructors on courses, from learning objectives to tackling the LMS. When my college switched to remote instruction as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, I created video tutorials to help colleagues get set up on VoiceThread and posted them on YouTube.
Tools used: TechSmith Relay, Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 and Shure Beta 58a microphone, YouTube, Canvas
eLearning Design from the Ground Up
I was excited to plan and design this natively all-online class from scratch. Using the ADDIE model, microlearning, and storyboarding, Online Journal Editing & Publishing had its first run in Spring 2020. Students joined the editorial board of Pine Hills Review, learned about literary journals, and gained practical experience in publishing.
Tools used: Canvas, WordPress, VoiceThread, Google Docs, Slack, social media, Canvas
Accessible Content with Learners in Mind
Lately I’ve been thinking about how LMS-agnostic content makes things easier for instructors and learners. Linked above is a collection of “revision techniques,” which I use in all my classes. Posting content on YouTube also makes it accessible for all of my classes, and available to others to use as well.
Tools used: Word, Adobe Acrobat, VoiceThread, TechSmith Relay, YouTube, Blackboard, Canvas
Inspiring
“Love This Class: Writing Poetry,” a short video my college made on a poetry class I taught recently.
