Mental Health and UDL
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Mental Health and UDL

BySeanna Takacs

According to this report, students are confiding in Faculty about mental health struggles, particularly in the last year around COVID, and questions continue to arise around how to help students who have. In my discussions with Faculty around both UDL and accommodation planning, mental health disabilities come up frequently. Absences, episodic symptoms that see students…

Maximizing the LMS with Moodle Templates
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Maximizing the LMS with Moodle Templates

ByLisa Gedak and Nishan Perera

In this blog post, we would like to showcase a resource framework developed to assist KPU faculty in building their Moodle course sites using evidence-based instructional design principles. This comprehensive resource is housed in a WordPress site that includes three primary, tabbed sections.    Why Use Templates in Moodle for Course Design   Moodle is KPU’s adopted Learning Management System (LMS) and is used to deliver online, blended, and tech-enhanced face-to-face courses. As KPU pivoted to teaching online during the pandemic, Moodle was vital in supporting faculty to design lessons, activities, and assessments in synchronous and asynchronous formats.   Although Moodle provided a lifeline for current users,…

Cultural Humility
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Cultural Humility

ByChristina Page

Introducing Cultural Humility When we set out on the journey of developing intercultural teaching practices, the diversity of frameworks and perspectives available can be overwhelming.  Choosing a framework to guide our own complex process of intercultural development can feel confusing. Spitzberg and Changnon (2009) note that among the dozens of frameworks available, there is no…

An Urgency of Teachers: The Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy

An Urgency of Teachers: The Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy

BySeanna Takacs and Lilach Marom

Three Ideas Intro Like many of you, our last few months were jam-packed with learning new teaching tools, attending webinars, and designing online courses. It was and is still a time of societal and educational crisis that demands learning on-the-go. We are appreciative of the leap of faith that KPU faculty and administrators took in…

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Engagement is Not a Drive-Through

Bylmccannell and Seanna Takacs

This week, Lesley and Seanna have teamed up to share some new thoughts on engagement. In the right hands, amazing things can be done with online activities, discussions, and assessments. The BIG DEAL though: yours are not the only hands. Engagement is grown by everyone in the class by taking our time in knowing and…

Getting to Know All About You: Establishing the Importance of Teaching Presence in Online Courses

Getting to Know All About You: Establishing the Importance of Teaching Presence in Online Courses

ByLisa Gedak

Community of Inquiry (COI) Video Instructor turns doorknob and enters classroom. The sound of hardbottom shoes clicking against the composite tile flooring is subtle, yet present, as the instructor makes their way to the front of the classroom. The instructor proceeds to set down their briefcase on the epoxy resin table at the head of…

A Fresh Perspective – Appreciative Inquiry

ByLeeann Waddington

Becoming an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) Facilitator has been the most impactful professional development training I have ever done, well; I thought it was about professional development but really it has impacted me in all aspects of my life. As a doctoral student it caused me to reconsider the problem based approach to research and to…

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Curriculum Mapping

ByKristie Dukewich

There are a number of tools that curriculum designers can use to help them design a program. These days curriculum design is really coalescing around an outcomes-based approach to curriculum. Also referred to as backwards design, the process starts with envisioning the program outcomes first: What do you want graduates of the program to be…