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Stay up-to-date on the latest Higher Education, K-12 and Curriculum Design content.
Higher Ed
Video Production Services: Effectively Use Video for College Courses
Educational videos need to be more than recorded lectures to engage students. Still, video production seems easy. All the faculty needs is a camera and their lecture notes, right? No, compelling videos can make or break a course’s effectiveness. Read on for the best things to focus on when creating videos for college courses when using video production services.
4 Points to Know for Provosts When Leading Instructional Designers
Leaders such as provosts set the tone for clear communications for their higher-ed institutions. Most importantly, they must develop staff and departments, ensuring they fit and follow the school’s vision. Significantly, leaders can build and support their instructional design (IDs) staff for their colleges. Often, ID staff faces many obstacles to being fully incorporated within the college environment. Some college leaders may not fully understand their role when developing the curriculum process. Higher education leaders can consider these 5 points when directing instructional designers.
The 4 Top Considerations When Launching Online College Programs
With the growth of online learning, many colleges are now taking steps to build online programs. Even before the pandemic, face-to-face attendance was decreasing. Meanwhile, the enrollment for online courses indicated a positive gain. Yet again, college enrollment has dropped. Some causes have been students dropping out because of mental stress. High tuition costs create another barrier for students not to enroll in a college program because they fear student loan debt. Higher-ed leaders can review these 4 critical considerations when creating online college programs.
College Courses: 5 Elements to Include for First Year Students
Students enter college from different backgrounds and situations. They might be fully college-ready; meanwhile, others need help. Besides that, college students might not know how to effectively study and attend classes. Thus, colleges have created first-year courses to help guide these students. The What Works Intervention Report produced by the Department of Education shows that students who attend first-year courses did better in college. With more online learning, first-year college courses become a valuable tool for retention and college-career guidance. They can be embedded in core courses like biology and offer various components such as socialization and learning support. Higher-ed leaders can include these five elements for these first-year college courses.
K-12
Social-Emotional Learning Products: How Can Publishers Improve Them for High School Students?
While some SEL programs face criticism from states and parents, a need for them remains. For high schoolers, effective SEL materials and products lack focus for them. Many high school students use products geared for younger grades. Therefore, these products do not address the social status that high school students experience in their teen years. Ineffective products lead to poor results. Providers and publishers consider the methods below to integrate into your products and materials for social-emotional learning.
5 Ways to Increase Digital Publishing for Spanish Language
Spanish-speaking readers are complex and diverse. Yet, Spanish readers continue to wait for the range of English readers’ choices in digital products. Publishing leaders misunderstand the market when translating English-speaking content into Spanish. Publishing leaders can use these five ways to increase digital publishing products for Spanish language readers.
Experiential Learning: 4 Elements Publishers Can Support
Experiential learning helps students to learn by doing. Thus, as online learning expands, schools must provide options for this type of learning. Students can work in groups, use project-based learning, and experience the arts to learn. Therefore, teachers and school districts can provide various ways to learn. Publishers can consider these four elements when supporting experiential learning for K-12.
K-12 Education: 5 Things Publishers Can Support for Phonics Instruction
Publishing leaders face yet another controversial conundrum – phonics versus balanced literacy instruction. For the last twenty years, providers have pivoted content development from a single text to a series of leveled teaching techniques. Now, educators are under fire for using instructional methods not backed by evidence and research to teach kids how to read. Recent headlines put phonics back in the spotlight as the method for teaching students to read. Again, publishers must rise to the challenge of giving teachers the tools they need in their classroom – as individualized as that can be. Publishers can use these 5 points to support phonics-based instruction for K-12 education.
Curriculum Design
Subject Matter Experts: Developing Expectations for Course Development
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), the oracles of knowledge, provide the expertise for curriculum and course development. They know the subject, perhaps taught it, made a course on their own before, or worked in an industry for many, many years. When developing the content, leaders, instructional designers (IDs), and other team members rely on them to ensure the content moves in the best direction; they review if the content is reliable. Yet, the curriculum development process may lack clarity. Team members may not know their role or not meet the expectations. Therefore, leaders should understand these situations when directing SMEs when developing courses.
Curriculum Development: Hiring a 3rd Party Vendor for Your Courses
Colleges, universities, and K-12 providers are seeing an increased need for curriculum development, especially for online course content. A majority of schools have been pushed into digital content to meet the needs of pandemic-related constraints. While these are positive transformations, they need to deliver content more quickly. Thus, schools face overworking current curriculum designers or hiring new employees. However, a more efficient solution is collaborating with experienced third-party content creators to design courses.
Curriculum Development: Creating Learning Goals and Objectives
The importance of clear, concise learning objectives cannot be overstated. Learners need to know what to focus on to learn the content. Still, courses fill curricula that do not have clear learning outcomes. Yet, with a few tweaks, courses and entire curriculums can be an impactful learning experience. Read below about the importance of learning goals and objectives for curriculum development.
Course Design for Higher Ed and K-12: Using a Learner-Centered Framework and Other Methods
College leaders can take a variety of approaches to course design. One method is learning-centered design. This design method focuses on the needs of the students as opposed to a traditional topical approach that focuses on the subject matter itself. To create effective and sustainable courses, designers should apply strategies that lead to successful learner experiences. Therefore, higher educational and K-12 leaders can employ this strategy and others to design effective courses.