NWeLearn 2024

This presentation will discuss the successes and challenges of delivering an online Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism, and Belonging (DEIAB) micro-credentialing program at an academic healthcare institution. The Foster Respectful and Equitable Education (FREE) Certification program is an equity-based program structured with Breadth and Depth workshops, active participation in a learning community, and a learning-by-practice capstone project. Breadth workshops assist with developing a broad critical equity analysis and learning applicable instructional practices associated with creating an equitable learning environment. Depth workshops integrate in-depth knowledge of how systemic inequities have uniquely impacted healthcare access in historically underrepresented and marginalized groups. CME credit is used as one tool for attracting clinical educators to the program, and the presenters will highlight methods for meeting the professional development needs of both clinical and non-clinical educators. The presenters will allow time for questions and encourage participants to share insights and feedback.

Curious about freelancing in instructional design? In this session, I'll share my journey and practical advice on being a freelancer. We’ll explore the factors to consider in deciding if freelancing aligns with your working style, essential skills for instructional designers, finding opportunities, and adapting to diverse work environments. I’ll also talk about important considerations before starting a project, how to manage projects, and tips for working effectively with clients and subject matter experts. Whether you're contemplating a move to freelancing or looking to broaden your instructional design career, this session will provide valuable insights and practical tips.

Session Slides

The key points covered in my presentation include:

• Understanding your responsibilities as an LMS administrator, such as identifying the eLearning decision-makers, clients (teachers and students), and institutional policies impacting eLearning.
• Determining if you are responsible for user support and training, and how to approach these tasks effectively.
• Encouraging your supervisor to provide a clear vision for your success, as they may lack technical or LMS experience.
• Realizing that you don't need to know everything about your LMS; instead, learn how to locate solutions and curate resources.
• Translating imprecise language used by clients into technically precise LMS terms.
• Investing time upfront on tasks like setting up competencies, user accounts, and quiz formatting, as it can yield significant rewards later.
• Understanding LMS user roles and permissions, and how to fine-tune them through testing and careful adjustment.

Faculty and staff have expertise to share. You have star players you'd like others to emulate. Short audio segments can be an effective way to share the expertise of your faculty and staff star players. Podcasting is an inexpensive and easily accessible format to capture and share these stories as a professional development tool. By keeping episodes short and focusing on faculty and staff experiences you can grow your professional development audience and amplify the stories you want others to know about.

PNWIDs, a loose collective of instructional designers, faculty, tech related people, is a space to openly share ideas around teaching and learning. It is a place to develop friendships and community around the work we do and the invitation extends to anyone interested in participating. You have ideas to share? You want to see what other people are doing? You want to connect. Join us on the web at pnwids.com or listen to this six-minute explanation of why you should be involved!

Working from home. COVID. Exhaustion. Twitter is gone. Is your sense of community missing? Feel less connected to colleagues and professional learning? Do you have ideas about recovery? This conversation invites sharing communal grief and finding new hope in real steps we can take to recover our belonging and community.

Here is the presentation. 

Centers for teaching and learning in higher education institutions have varied approaches to assessing the impact of their work (Haras et al., 2027; POD Network, n.d.), including professional development. Using a program evaluation or assessment framework is one way to measure efficacy of a center for teaching and learnings’ resources. At OHSU’s Teaching and Learning Center (TLC), we needed a flexible and adaptable instrument to assess a wide variety of resources that differ in mode, objectives, and duration.
Thus, we wanted to see if the Evidence of Learning and Impact Framework (Tucker et al., 2022) could be applied to a professional unit that provides resources for educator excellence. In this session we will share the history of professional development offerings provided by the OHSU TLC, what we learned from how they had been assessed and how that led to the need for a more holistic framework. We hope by sharing our story, other institutions may consider adopting and adapting OHSU’s evidence of learning and impact framework to evaluate their own professional development offerings.

Many graduate teaching assistants in STEM and other disciplines have never taken education courses and may repeat pedagogical patterns they have seen as students and not know that these patterns are ineffective or incorrect for the courses, students, or teaching modalities being used. This presentation will discuss the development and implementation of a teaching and learning professional development workshop series for graduate teaching assistants and post-doctoral students at WSU Vancouver.
This presentation will provide ideas and strategies on how to design a similar workshop or series of workshops at other colleges and universities where teaching and learning courses for graduate teaching assistants and post docs may be lacking. Secondly, providing this type of teaching and learning support could make a college or university more attractive to undergraduate and transfer students that wish to attend graduate school and receive the teaching and learning support that other colleges and universities do not offer. Lastly, attendees will generate workshop topic ideas or a development plan that they can implement when they return home. They will also be able to review suggestions from others and offer others their suggestions.