Full Track Descriptions

Please review the following tracks and program categories listed below prior to submitting your proposal. Click on the (+) to expand each track to open a full description and guiding information for that track.  

Both research and evidence-based proposals are encouraged for submission.  Please align submission to the session type as shown on the session detail page.

Blended Teaching and Learning: Surfacing effective practices for strategically integrating face-to-face and online environments in support of student success

Submissions to this track should focus on blended course/program models and design(s), with an emphasis on research-based best practices, effectiveness, efficiencies, innovation, and scalability. Topics in this track might include:

  • Methods and resources for redesigning courses for the blended format
  • Strategies for engaging students online to prepare them for face-to-face activities
  • Discipline-specific approaches for blended courses/programs
  • Non-traditional assessments that motivate and engage blended learners
  • Intersections of flipped and blended approaches
  • Microlearning models that support flipped classroom activities
  • Teaching condensed or accelerated blended courses
  • Research methods and theories of innovation in blended teaching and learning
  • Faculty development, training, and support for blended teaching and learning
  • Institutional practices, policies, and approaches to blended programming
  • Blended practices, initiatives, and research that was enacted in response to COVID-19

Career and Technical Education: Designing workforce development and career pathways with technologies, services, and online opportunities that are experiential, connected to career success, and supportive of lifetime learning

Proposals for this track should focus on innovations in pedagogy, curriculum, technology, learning assessments and certifications, and collaborations with industries and professional organizations that increase the number of learners becoming successfully employed. Proposals from community colleges, career and technical training institutions, and organizations supporting workforce development through the use of online and digital education are encouraged. Some ideas to get you started:

  • Collaborations between educational institutions, industries, non-profits, and workforce development organizations
  • Reimagining technical and experiential teaching and learning for the online and blended learning environments
  • Pedagogical innovations in workforce training and resiliency
  • Alternative and accelerated pathways to degrees and credentials; micro-credentialing, leveraging the blockchain
  • Competency-based education and prior learning: Strategies that are working for students, institutions, and employers
  • Student support, mentoring, coaching and engagement initiatives
  • Leveraging accessibility, Universal Design, and inclusivity to support a variety of learners and learning experiences
  • Addressing challenges for active duty military: portability, asynchronicity, adult learners, student leadership

Instructional Technologies and Tools: Highlighting the emerging and innovative gadgets and gizmos that support pedagogical innovation in the digital and online learning spaces of higher education

Proposals for this track focus on emerging and innovative tools that can create new possibilities and pathways for online teaching and digital learning. This track is especially for conference participants to share fresh perspectives on the use of tech tools to support both learning outcomes and student engagement, to explain the results of related media studies, and to describe inventive instructional approaches for all learners. Some potential topics could include:

  • The role of emerging technological tools in supporting pedagogical innovation
  • Technologies that support individualized instruction at scale
  • Technology to assess student engagement and success
  • Tools that redefine the spaces and places where learning occurs (virtual reality, augmented reality, holograms)
  • Tools that enable community building and collaboration
  • The impact of assistive technology on teaching and learning
  • mLearning, mobile apps and ubiquitous access to technology
  • Tools with a significant freemium model that would lower economic barriers to adoption

Leadership and Advocacy: Spotlighting the spaces and groups that foster strategic visioning and change work within online, blended, and digital learning

Proposals for this track should focus on structural innovations and collaborations required amongst leaders and allies within online and digital education. What are some initiatives, strategies, or implementation plans your institution is using to move the needle? Some ideas to get you started:

  • Innovative leadership initiatives, programs, or structures that promote institutional ecology
  • Supporting individuals, stakeholders, and teams in making positive institutional changes
  • Scaling innovations across departments, institutions and systems
  • Social impact / transformation: ways institutions are driving societal change, recognizing and challenging power-dynamics, supporting diverse communities, and solving community issues
  • Rethinking definitions of academic and educational success
  • Advocating and driving change around accessibility, Universal Design, and inclusivity
  • The use of data analytics to foster innovation
  • Rethinking the organizational structure

Open Learning: Driving the creation and sustainability of open learning spaces (physical or digital; MOOCs), open scholarship, open access, open pedagogy, open research, and OERs

Proposals for this track should focus on the creation and integration of open (created, shared, and accessible) educational resources. In addition to open textbooks, we welcome submissions on open online courses, open resources for facilitating classroom experiences, and open pedagogy to give students a voice in the negotiation of their learning. Examples that qualify for this track include, but are not limited to:

  • Utilizing and managing affordable learning solutions to minimize financial burden for students
  • Open educational practices and collaborations within teaching and learning
  • Adopting, adapting and creating Open Educational Resources (OERs) into courses
  • Connective open online courses (i.e. MOOCs) and open learning networks that include multiple stakeholder groups (faculty, students, researchers, allies)
  • Open pedagogical practices that foster equity and inclusion
  • Open research practices and the ethical sharing of empirical research and data
  • Accessibility, equity, and inclusivity in all aspects of learning environments

Process, Problems, and Practices: Spotlighting the cyclical nature of defining and defeating obstacles to innovation in digital and online learning

Proposals for this track focus on identifying challenges inhibiting innovation in online and digital learning environments, detailing processes that solve those challenges, and highlighting practices that make those solutions sustainable. Proposals should address the process of planning innovations, implementing them, and/or assessing their effectiveness. Some ideas to get you started:

  • Process and cycle of innovation; defining problems and challenges, iterating towards solutions 
  • Design Thinking and human-centered approaches to design
  • Forging and maintaining cross-functional partnerships
  • Learning through failure and establishing growth mindset culture
  • Innovation readiness, institutional culture, and the agony and ecstasy of change
  • Addressing the dark side of innovation – digital divide, barriers to equity, privacy, cybersecurity, oversight, authentication, intellectual property
  • Incorporating accessibility, Universal Design, and inclusivity into the institution
  • The students’ role in innovation

Research: Designs, Methods, and Findings: Showcasing formal research and in-progress studies in the scholarship of online teaching and learning with technology

This track is reserved for presentations that showcase data, analysis, and outcomes on the scholarship of teaching and learning with technology and that expand the role of research in online learning. Share your research journey and aim to bridge the gap between your results and real world application. Consider the best ways to communicate your work with other researchers, educators, and practitioners in digital learning. Your findings help demonstrate how innovation and research are a necessary partnership in today’s world of online and digital learning. Some potential topics could include:

  • Research questions, designs, and methodologies in digital and online learning
  • Measurement, validity and reliability considerations of current research in digital and online learning
  • Communities of teaching and learning research; the role of instructional designers in research
  • Translating research data and outcomes into new practices in teaching and learning
  • Designing accessible research projects and presentations

Teaching and Learning Practice: Creating effective approaches to practices for online teaching and digital learning with technology including active learning, game-based learning, and experiential practices

Proposals for this track should focus on models or methods for online teaching and digital learning in online, blended, or technology-enhanced courses and programs. We welcome sessions that address any aspect of pedagogical practice, learning design, collaborative curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Examples that qualify for this track include, but are not limited to:

  • Inventive, groundbreaking, or exploratory online course or program design methods
  • Curriculum/program reforms (Academic Transformation)
  • Student engagement methods, practices, assessment activities, and approaches
  • Innovative approaches to blended/hybrid learning and teaching with technology
  • Accessibility, Universal Design, and inclusivity in technology-enhanced learning
  • Strategies for addressing performance gaps to promote success across all populations
  • Game-based learning, game design, storytelling, and role-playing