We are pleased to announce the program for OLC Innovate 2018!

Flipped classrooms have increased engagement, but at-home instruction is often isolating for students. We have developed 2D Discussion, a platform that creates a nodal network from discussion board posts. This method allows students to better visualize connections between topics and will hopefully encourage more robust interactions outside of the classroom.

This model proposes a flexible templated approach to course development based on the need for faculty autonomy and instructional designer engagement.  Recognizing the need of instructional designers to engage multiple stakeholders, and the need of faculty to retain their autonomy, this model gives insight to how this might work in a practical way.

Next Generation Digital Learning Environment (NGDLE), identified in 2015, has been an enigma; many definitions, many white-papers, few production examples. In this session, instructional designers, technologists behind the first open source NGDLE will demonstrate and discuss learner experience across a distributed platform through examples of live courses by showcasing the Next Generation of EdTech.

This session will examine an interactive augmented reality interface we developed, piloted, and have begun to evaluate in an upper-level biochemistry course. The data we are gathering compares student perceptions in two scenarios--viewing 3D protein structures via traditional monitor display in PyMol versus in Augmented Reality using iPads.

AMAs (Ask Me Anything) are fairly commonplace events in the business world. How can higher-education institutions translate this concept and practice for their unique purposes? In this presentation, we will share how we planned, revised and implemented AMAs in our university context.  

Particularly within the last 10 years, education has seen the accelerated parallel development of blended learning and active learning as highly recommended practices. Furthermore, with the advocacy of STEM education, the presented mixed methods study examines a proposed framework that blended learning affordances enables or constrains active learning. Within the framework includes blended learning affordances like face-to-face lectures, in-class clicker questions, discussion classes, quizzes, online homework, and external face-to-face and online tutoring services. By the end of the presentation, participants will craft their own blended learning designs, other than the traditional blend of face-to-face and online experiences. Participants will identify the potential benefits and pitfalls to the use of particular affordances in a blended learning class. Participants will also identify how the blended learning affordances influence active learning among students.

An overview of how I used Virtual Reality and ThingLink to deliver an immersive Crime Scene experience to online and face-to-face students. During this presentation I’ll share tips, tricks and lessons learned on how I got started, where I went and more importantly where will this project be heading. 

Colleges and universities are under increasing pressure to justify the value of their degrees and credentials. University of Maryland University College (UMUC) is using gamified learning in a digital badge pilot to validate how students’ academic content knowledge and experiences align with the career-ready skills employers seek.

Online dual enrollment has the potential to reach many at-risk students and gives them an opportunity to self-determine whether post-secondary education is the right option. This conversation focuses on our approach to the design and delivery of online dual enrollment courses to students who learn differently (LD).

The reflexive quality of institutional assessment requires that leaders challenge themselves and their faculty to interrogate assumptions, to think about how they are thinking and why. This presentation will outline practical techniques aimed at helping faculty develop their own metacognitive practice using a growth mindset model of engagement.  

Innovation often emerges when diverse people can freely communicate dissent and agreement. The MSU Hub’s team of educators, instructional designers, and researchers are currently supporting a large-scale curriculum revisioning. Join us for conversation rooted in this question: How do you balance diverse viewpoints to keep innovation projects flowing to completion?

In the year 2020, it's estimated that it will only take 73 days for the volume of medical knowledge to double. Simple rote recall is clearly not feasible, so the question becomes how do medical educators prepare future providers to have both a foundation of knowledge and critical thinking skills. 

Practice incorporating the first three Universal Design Principles into your online courses, no matter the age or skill level of your students.  Logical, intuitive course design benefits not just students on the Autism Spectrum, but also ADHD students, international students, and anyone else trying to navigate online course content.  

Twitter is the largest Professional Learning Network in existence & we need to get you plugged in. Discover what you have been missing at this conference, the collaboration, the discussion, the conference behind the conference. We will discuss whom to follow, twitter tips, & more. Join the discussion @ #OLCInnovate.

The University of Maine implemented a digital badging initiative that aids students in developing the skills employers need and the economy demands. Sixty badges were created, taking students from participant to leader, improving their workforce-readiness by offering active engagement experiences, within a three level, stackable pathway system.

We continue to hear stories of underrepresented and first generation students lagging behind or switching out of STEM majors. Hear how we are creating more stories of thriving through a new online speaker series, where faculty, staff, and students can share ideas, learn from one another, and build a community. 

Instructors face numerous challenges for getting students to work in teams.  The focus of this session is to present some of the elements and strategies faculty and instructional designers must take into consideration when planning, implementing and guiding virtual teams and team activities in online courses.

In a world of innovative teaching and distance learning, educators have a plethora of technological approaches available when developing or modifying courses.  By employing empirical research models of fidelity of implementation and efficacy, educators can measure adherence to instructional interventions and their effect on targeted student achievement gaps.

Online teaching and learning (OTL) is promoted at many universities in a variety of ways. This session describes the development of an office of digital teaching and learning to include the addition of a faculty fellow who serves the department and University in several ways. The roles, responsibilities, and activities of a faculty fellow are presented along with initial outcomes. How does the faculty fellow and office of digital learning connect and collaborate with fellow faculty members and administrators to specifically promote OTL practices? Examples are provided.

Curious about how version 3 of a college success skills course evolved? Join us to learn about the process and results of the redesigned course. The motivation behind the changes for version 4 will be discussed. This presentation is targeted to instructional designers and faculty who create their own courses. 

It has been described as the most important technology since the internet, and for good reason. The blockchain is no longer a fringe technology with narrow economic applicability; it has become the digital backbone for thousands of innovative applications. Discover the tools that will define the online learning economy of tomorrow.

How do you engage faculty in teaching innovation at a research university? Join us for an interactive session where we’ll share how Cornell is engaged in a process to merge academic technologies and the teaching center to enhance pedagogical innovation and improve the student experience.  We will discuss opportunities, challenges, and consider how to move the needle on innovation in teaching.

This session will brainstorm how to take existing class assignments and projects and move them into an open pedagogical framework. Using already published examples and examples from the authors' own classes as a jumping off point, the discussion will focus on the promises of open pedagogy and how to move into it. 

Among faculty there is still skepticism about the effectiveness of online learning. The Ecampus Research Unit at Oregon State University has created a searchable database that will help users to find discipline-specific research comparing online, hybrid/blended, and face-to-face modalities. Participants will be able to test the database and provide feedback. 

The Online Teaching Immersion Experience program was made possible by a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Guidance for Trainees Grant. Our program taught best practices in online course design and pedagogy to STEM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. It involved a collaborative effort between Thomas Jefferson and Widener Universities.

Innovative partnerships that unite institutions, alternative learning providers and employers create an effective educational ecosystem to prepare learners for the workforce, and for higher learning. Explore models that are designed to increase access, affordability and degree completion through use of OER’s, prior learning assessment and alignment with academia-industry standards. 

Padlet is a free “virtual wall” to house comments and posts. It's like using Post-It Notes, but on the web. In this session, learn how to use Padlet as part of your teaching toolbox to summarize a large amount of information—text, photos, graphs—for various assignments and class purposes.

Can open, customizable, self-mapped learning pathways make the transition from conceptual heutagogical idea to practical classroom application? This interactive presentation will explore the pros and cons of this emerging learning design approach by collaboratively brainstorming ideas with participants for how they can practically apply customizable pathway concepts to their courses.

Imagine being able to extend learning experiences for students beyond the classroom.  Enhance and transform teaching and learning with the integration of Schoology's basic tools with the SAMR framework.   In this session, educators are able to understand how the SAMR framework and Schoology support personalized learning.

Educators can respond to the challenges in higher education stronger together, as a community. This mindset was the impetus for the creation of the SkillsCommons.org IMPACTcommunities. Three communities were created to address specific needs in higher education: StoryTelling, Industry Expert to Expert Instructor, and the Skills2Work (S2W). Come hear each of the three communities discuss the progressive and successful outcomes of their work.

Although experts continue to study Millienials in an attempt to understand their behavior, a new demographic has surfaced that may significantly impact institutions of higher education: enter the Centennials.  Although some demographic research has been reported in industry, Centennials and their social media use have not been explored in detail in scholarly educational research (Chou, 2009).  We explore these and other issues in this study.     

The agile teacher, is a gameful approach to faculty and staff workshops, that provides opportunities for discussion, collaboration and intellectual collision. The workshop invites  participants to think through common challenges that arise in courses, and address issues of technology integration, personalized learning and student/teacher interaction.

Colleges and universities today face greater challenges than in years past. Increases in tuition costs coupled with a deficit of high-paying, after-college jobs suggest to some that college may not be worth the investment. Additionally, schools are under increasing scrutiny from multiple stakeholders to provide evidence that students are achieving set outcomes. With these challenges, it is more important than ever that our colleges and universities embrace technology in teaching and learning, and recognize that teaching today’s students necessitates a pedagogical shift to the teaching mindset.

This session will pose questions about the changing higher education landscape for faculty and students as well as explore ways to energize existing teaching and learning by infusing best practices in technology integration. 

We didn’t realize the impact of a small, department initiative until Institutional Research called to determine the cause behind some impressive statistics. Join us as we chat about implementing and working to mandate an online student orientation for all incoming students.

To what extent do online students’ perceive their course satisfaction and dissatisfaction influence their course performance? Presenters will answer this question based on findings from a dissertation study and references such as Keller’s ARCS Model and Herzberg’s two-factor theory. They will recommend strategies that could potentially improve online students performance.

Looking for a way to "escape" the traditional teaching and learning environment? Creating Digital Breakout Games can help you "breakout" of your day to day routines while engaging your students, not only in content, but also the four C's of 21st century learning: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.

In this session, participants will be introduced to a brick and mortar classroom-based strategy known as “5 Practices for orchestrating productive discussions” and consider how it might be adapted to an online discussion board with the goal of developing a new strategy for facilitating effective online discussions.

In this education session presenters will introduce a framework for online instruction.  The participants will then engage with the framework and utilize it to develop ideas for improved facilitation and design practices, troubleshoot challenges faced in online learning, and evaluate the design and delivery of online courses. 

As a professor of blended Instructional Technology courses, I have utilized several strategies to help build community in my classroom, including the use of social media, small group work, and requests for personal information.  I will present these strategies for faculty who wish to build community in blended courses.

This conversation will focus on ideation and strategies for implementation of a scaleable online program to address critical technical and soft-skills gaps among University of Arizona undergraduate students. What could a successful a la carte, personalized, flexible and easily accessible curricular program look like? How can we leverage current resources and ensure effective collaboration among our academic partners? 

Generate Enthusiasm in 30 Seconds! Try out a compelling engagement tool for any group. No experience needed. An anytime, anywhere, method for involving student voice into any content

While online education is on the rise, attrition of these students has remained a significant issue. This study addresses what factors can predict persistence in online undergraduate programs at a four-year institution. The factors that were explored included pre-college academic characteristics, demographic characteristics, academic performance, and learner behavior of online students.

Smartphones and tablets are rapidly replacing laptops as the student’s device of choice for eLearning purposes.  Predictive analytics tells us that we will need to be ready for the tech savvy digital natives as their classroom use of interactive touch screen technology is significantly different than the educational foundations of previous generations. 

Faculty understand the immediacy of integration and are interested in how mobile apps could be incorporated into their curriculum.  Why then is there a disconnection between intention and adoption?

Using guided inquiries in traditional classrooms yields noteworthy learning and engagement results. However, this instructional method is rarely used in non-science fields or in an online setting. Attendees will themselves experience a guided inquiry as they learn about the method’s strengths, broad online and curricular applicability, and underlying theoretical support.

Teaching and Learning Technologies at Purdue University has developed a comprehensive pilot process to evaluate new learning technologies. The pilot planning process, establishing a diverse teaching and learning support team, faculty recruitment, implementation, and assessment strategies will be shared with the participants.

ASU and CogBooks are developing a first of its kind integrated adaptive curriculum in undergraduate education.  Entitled the “BioSpine,” this project will develop an adaptable learning environment so that collaborative teaching communities can create concept charts and content that can be configured into courses by faculty to enable student success. 

Self-Mapped Learning Pathways are an innovative instructional approach that facilitates learner agency while moving learners towards heutagogical/self-determined learning. Learners create their own individualized pathways through a course that potentially encompasses several different modalities. This session examines current research into practical applications of Self-Mapped Learning Pathways in traditional college courses.

The arc of a college or university professor's life can be difficult.  Teaching, writing, and service to the profession is time consuming.  What if you could support all three of these elements with one activity?  Learn about MERLOT peer reviewing and the possibilities for your professional growth!

Podcasting is enjoying a resurgence, partly because it is so engaging, and partly because it has become relatively easily produced. We’ll explore together what it takes to make an effective podcast for the benefit of students or colleagues.

Southwest Tennessee Community College is on the forefront of groundbreaking education when it comes to integrating high impact practices (HIPs) and emerging technologies into teaching and learning. Central to the transformation is the newly formed Office for High Impact Practices and Innovation (HIPI). You are invited to participate in a thought-provoking discussion on how HIPs and emerging technologies forces us to ask new questions, find new solutions, and possibly formulate new definitions for teaching and learning. For researchers and administrators, the next layer of contemplation is how do we measure and assess the impact of high impact practices and emerging technologies within the framework of student learning outcomes, retention, and graduation.

Integrations aid in meeting quality standards for an exceptional student experience. Examples of integrations and how they help aid in meeting quality design standards will be presented.

This presentation will reinforce the importance of instructional technology advocacy through the of NearPod. In addition to NearPod's promotion of engaged, student-centered learning, the presentation will acknowledge the digital divide between 21st century learners and their 20th century teachers, administrators, and educational preparatory providers.

Sacred Heart University’s OER initiative has seen positive results in its first stage of planning and implementation. Five factors have been driving change – tactical planning, collaborative networking, awareness building, impact measurement, and pedagogy focus. Using evidence-based examples, we will share strategies for cost-savings, increased access, and enhanced pedagogical practices.

DigPINS (Digital: Pedagogy, Identity, Networks, and Scholarship) is a new and exciting online faculty development course focusing on participatory exploration of who we are and how we interact and learn online. Built using open resources, a Creative Commons template of the curriculum has been released which can be adapted for your institution.

It is important to understand what devices students prefer to use to access online course materials. This session shares the results of a study that examined 1,991 online students’ device preferences for accessing online course sites, viewing video content, and learning with simulations and games.

As online courses continue to increase, the use of discussion boards continues to be the main venue for communication between learners and their instructor. This qualitative study analyzed student perceptions of how students prefer their instructor to engage with them when discussion boards are being utilized in the online classroom.

Web 2. 0 technologies allow faculty members to help focus the attention of students and reach different kinds of learners on different levels. Not all Web 2. 0 tools are accessible to people with disabilities. This session will explore accessible Web 2. 0 tools that drive inquiry, and differentiate instruction.

This session addresses the challenges associated with academic integrity during online testing. Video monitoring has leveled the playing field for students and instructors using web-cam technology to create a proctored setting. A literature review of online cheating, technology tools and the impact on grade-based learning outcomes will be presented.