Instructor-led online courses – Blackboard, TechSmith Camtasia, Articulate Storyline
At a regional health sciences college, I partnered with faculty experts to design and develop courses. This included designing new courses, redesigning existing courses, and converting face-to-face courses to an online format in topics such as faculty professional development, health sciences, and general education.
Online Teaching Essentials for Instructors
Instructors who are teaching their first online course need foundational skills and knowledge to facilitate student interactions and learning. After conducting a needs analysis to identify gaps in the existing process for coaching these instructors, I designed and developed Online Teaching Essentials, a self-paced course that focuses on the facilitation of online courses for faculty or adjunct instructors who are new to online teaching. The self-paced option is available all year to meet the College’s year-round adjunct hiring needs and provide flexibility to learners – and requires minimal instructor management. Topics include preparing to teach, instructor presence, creating videos, facilitating discussions, assessing learning, and managing instructor workload.
A second course, Online Course Design, is an asynchronous instructor-led 5-week offering that is designed for faculty who are new to the design of online courses. Faculty redesign an existing course or design a new course within the framework of this course. Topics include online course quality, creating a sense of community and presence, designing for all learners, and designing online activities and assessments.
Introduction to Healthcare Ethics Course
Undergraduate students who may never have had experience in healthcare need to be introduced to ethical and legal best practices early in their program. Because of the large number of students who need the content and flexibility for scheduling, a primarily self-paced model was used. The instructor is still leading the course but sections are large with 40-100 students, so self-directed activities and mini-scenarios to teach content allow the instructor to focus primarily on student interaction.
With only 15 weeks to completely overhaul the course, I created detailed timelines to plan my own work, as well as coordinate the work of 2 faculty members. I advised and guided both faculty as hurdles arose during the project. I walked instructors through brainstorming and designing interactive online scenarios where students practice critical decision-making skills with patients. It was a new and innovative way of learning for the College. I led a pilot review with sample learners to identify problems and fix them before students encountered them. Because the course is self-directed, the course is packaged in a way that helps learners move through the activities in a clear and seamless way.
Medical Terminology Course
Students were struggling to use interactive e-textbook activities integrated into an existing course required for all health sciences students on medical terminology. Rather than create many hours of new interactive activities, I redesigned the course to provide clear instructions for setting up and accessing the e-textbook activities. Work included new course orientation materials, as well as redesign of the lesson structure and formatting.
Roles: Project Manager, Instructional Designer
