Recently, I became aware of the idea of empathy in instructional design. Upon further research, I saw that there seems to be a lot of discussion regarding this topic (especially from the past few years or so). For examples, check out the links below: 5 Steps Towards Empathetic Instructional Design In Online Training A Guide to Empathetic Design Empathy As Your Starting Point for Great eLearning Design Empathy Framework Overview So, what does empathy in instructional design

As part of the ID2ID Program, we are required to attend professional development events in order to keep up with current events. Today, we were presented with a webinar titled Student Device Preferences for Online Course Access and Multimedia Learning, presented by researchers at Oregon State. This presentation opened my eyes to the idea and actual usage of mobile devices in online education. Based on conversations with individuals in the field - I thought the direction of

This week, I'm focusing on the use of polls to increase student engagement in different learning environments. The tool I examined this week was Poll Everywhere. Poll Everywhere is essentially an online voting tool that can help an instructor or trainer elicit responses in real time. As technology grows, so does the need for learners to develop and acquire 21st century skills. Poll Everywhere allows learners to respond to questions in real time – letting the instructor or

Lately, I've been working on a few course developments and a full program evaluation. What I have started to notice was the trend or reuse of assignments across different courses. I've realized that many instructors find a teaching assignment or teaching style that works for them and then they try to make that style or assignment work for all online courses. While if tweaked properly this may be effective, it could also affect the students in a number of ways. 1) Not all

Earlier this week, I received our midterm evaluation survey results. While discussing with a co-worker (we'll call her Lisa from now on), it was brought up how an instructor she works with was having a difficult time handling the news that the instructor's class had bad reviews. My initial response was, "What did the students report as not going well?" Lisa responded and said that students reported that the discussions were not helping them to learn. Often times in online