In the last decade since the article was published, the complexity of designing courses and programs has increased significantly. Increased expectations of institutional effectiveness from regional accreditors regarding Academic Rigor<\/em> and increasing Retention and Graduation Rates<\/em>, and more recently Gainful Employment<\/em> regulations, have all increased the complexity and requirements needing to be considered during the design of distance learning courses and programs. Simultaneously, the complexity of development of curriculum has also increased in terms of risks which must be mitigated. Copyright laws, ADA accessibility requirements, and the diverse world of different devices and browsers with which students access the class and materials, all contribute to the increasing difficulty of developing curriculum without significant support from a team of curriculum support staff with expertise outside of the average faculty member. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Compounding the complexity and adding to the need for additional expertise, all curriculum for online courses and programs at Online University, are centrally developed under the direction of the full-time Faculty, who are also responsible for directing, monitoring and supporting the delivery of the quality of instruction. Each week the Master <\/em>versions of each of the nearly 700 courses, are copied into the required number of Course sections<\/em> based on the needs of the nearly 55,000 students. Students are then grouped into individual course sections, along with one of the nearly 400 full-time, or one of over 3000 Associate Faculty who lead the facilitation of learning within the individual sections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Through this operational model, the content, assignments and assessments within a course are the same for each of the thousands of students who engage in the curriculum regardless of when it is offered, or which faculty member helps promote and measure student learning. With the centralized curriculum model, consistency of the student experience as well as consistency of learning outcome measures are able to be managed, which are critical aspects maintaining ensuring quality at a massive scale. Conversely, the resultant disaggregation of curriculum design from its facilitation adds additional complexity to the already difficult task of designing and delivering asynchronous, technology-mediated learning experiences, in an accelerated format. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also impacting the complexity and importance of development and delivery of quality curriculum are the level of support required to effectively support the Online University student population. Students at OU are matriculated through an open-enrollment <\/em>policy, admitting all qualified applicants who are able to provide documentation of high school completion in the form of a Diploma<\/em> or GED<\/em> certificate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While this open enrollment policy provides access to a college education for those who otherwise may not have been able to attend, the broad range of skills and experience that OU students bring to the classroom is both an educational challenge and an opportunity that must be considered in the design of centralized academic curriculum. Demographically, students at OU largely fit the age, employment and residential status criteria of Nontraditional Students<\/em> (Horn, 1996). OU students, like many of their counterparts in adult-focused institutions often balance multiple sets of responsibilities both inside and outside of the home, are likely to be employed in some capacity, and a large portion of which, have families to support as well. As a result of these traits and others, OU students require a level of support and resource allocation, not often provided at more traditional institutions of teaching and learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With the design and implementation of the OU Design Lab, we seek an elegant solution to a set of complex challenges including resource and staffing deficits, a complicated hierarchical structure combined with a distributed workforce, and a population of learners who require a clear and effective curriculum to support their learning. The Design Lab initiative has been designed to harness the expertise of the faculty, staff, available data and research in The Learning Sciences<\/em>, in a new way; toward the collective pursuit of improvement and innovation in the practice of curriculum development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Through a combination of collaborative and supported design sessions, technology-mediated communication, knowledge and community building, in conjunction with leveraging a variety of asynchronous web tools the Design Lab will serve to support student learning and success through improved curriculum design practice. Though constructed from an aggregation of both tangible and symbolically mediating tools and signs, (Vygotsky, 1978) the Design Lab is much more than could possibly be described in terms of its physical components alone. The following proposal for the OU Design Lab<\/em> is presented both in terms of the foundational learning theory and underlying epistemology in contrast to current practices, followed by an analysis of the planned implementation and delivery, evaluated through the requisite sociocultural lens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Improving the professional practice of curriculum development at Online University poses several unique and complex challenges pertaining to the interrelated aspects of working, learning and innovating within the practice of curriculum development. Brown & Duguid (1991) encourage the intentional combination of workplace practice and creative innovation by suggesting that \u201c\u2026working, learning, and innovating to thrive collectively, depends on linking these three in theory and in practice, more closely, more realistically, and more reflectively than is generally the case at present\u201d (pg. 55). Though it has been nearly 25 years since this was written, arguably little has changed in the average workplace to close the gap, and curriculum development at Online University is no exception. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the Design Lab to be implemented successfully at Online University, there are several challenges that must be overcome. The following discussion will survey a variety of challenges and potential solutions, examining the theoretical foundations of both the problems and design solutions involved in combining practice with learning and innovation. In order of presentation, the three major theoretical discussions supporting the Design Lab pertain to: shifting from the engrained epistemology of our formal learning environments, the importance of considering the shifting of identities within participant groups and individuals, and the complex challenges related to leveraging the affordances of technology in the construction of distance learning programs in a technology mediated environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Providing significant resistance to integrating learning and innovation with practice seamlessly, is the strong tradition of Cognitivist Theories of Learning <\/em>and their underlying Epistemological assumptions in nearly all formal learning environments. Cognitivist theories of learning describe the acquisition of information within ones\u2019 Long Term Memory (LTM)<\/em> as foundational to the understanding of learning.<\/em> Kirshner, Sweller and Clark (2006) comment on the paramount importance of long term memory when they argue that the \u201c\u2026long term memory is now viewed as the central, dominant structure of human cognition.\u201d (pg.76) <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cognitivist lens of learning provides a natural foundation for the design of formal learning environments and the development of instructional practices that attempt to maximize the acquisition of information in long term memory. Of the more widely known cognitivist theories tied deeply to traditional instructional design of learning, is Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), <\/em>which describes the limitations of learning in terms the continual interplay between the limited capacity of the Working Memory (WM)<\/em>, and the unlimited capacity of the Long Term Memory (LTM), <\/em>(Sweller, 1988). Building and organizing formal knowledge structures in the long-term memory, have been shown to be able to be accessed later without strain on working memory (Paas, et al. 2010), affording the increasing complexity of thought demonstrated as expertise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When designing learning environments, this pursuit of continued reduction of distractions and extraneous strain on the working memory in instructional environments is a primary objective. Simultaneously the cognitivist lens encourages the pursuit of increased effectiveness of instructional delivery to improve learning. Many of our formal learning environments both public and private have been created based on this reasoning and understanding making it particularly difficult to initiate change in curriculum design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The effects of Cognitivist Epistemology on participants of formal learning environments are widespread, and yet hardly ever described in terms of the explicit connection to the foundational assumptions in terms that make the connection clear. Regarding the effect of designing learning environments on these assumptions, Wenger (1998) writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur institutions, to the extent that they address issues of learning explicitly, are largely based on the assumption that learning is an individual process, that it has a beginning and an end, that it is best separated from the rest of our activities, and that it is the result of teaching. Hence we arrange classrooms where students – free from the distractions of their participation in the outside world – can pay attention to a teacher or focus on exercises. We design computer-based training programs that walk students through individualized sessions covering reams of information and drill practice. To assess learning, we use tests with which students struggle in one-on-one combat, where knowledge must be demonstrated out of context, and where collaborating is considered cheating. As a result, much of our institutionalized teaching and training is perceived by would-be learners as irrelevant, and most of us come out of this treatment feeling that learning is boring and arduous, and that we are not really cut out for it.\u201d(pg. 1-2)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The traditional classroom environment, virtual learning environments and professional development programs in use today, abstract the more cerebral-focused activities of learning facts and abstracted ideas over authentic application of knowledge in practice. As Brown (1991) described, \u201cThe central issue in learning is becoming a practitioner not learning about practice.\u201d<\/em> (pg.48) <\/em>yet many of our institutions of learning continue to operate blindly as if this was not the case. The resultant effects are situations where students are prepared to know about subjects, rather than learning to do or practice within the expertise within a given domain, leading to poor <\/p>\n\n\n\n With this in mind, the Design Lab, will diverge from the traditional cognitivist approach to learning and intentionally combine the workplace practices of learning, working and innovating. In the new approach to curriculum development, knowledge is not considered fixed and bound to traditional understanding, but rather created is constructed and shared within a community that works together in pursuit of new knowledge. Jenkins (2006) discusses the shift from fixed expertise to a Collective Intelligence<\/em>, when he writes, “The expert paradigm requires a bounded body of knowledge, which an individual can master. The types of questions that thrive in a collective intelligence, however, are open ended and profoundly interdisciplinary; they slip and slide across borders and draw of the combined knowledge of more diverse community.” (pg. 52) Faculty, support staff and interdisciplinary groups will share the physical and conceptual space of the design lab, increasing the collaboration and community needed to improve curriculum design in ways not previously possible as individuals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The design and planned facilitation of the Design Lab have been considered directly in terms of both psychological and social constructivism (Richardson, 2003). On a macro-level, the initiative focuses on helping to facilitate the creation of socially-relevant, meaningful knowledge within interdisciplinary groups. On a micro-level, the individual participants will construct knowledge into their schema (Sweller, 1988) and then apply it in practice in the creation of artifacts of personal and social relevance, for sharing, discussion and reflection individually and often collectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As is the case for any real<\/em> endeavor, there are existent expectations of general outcomes, and real-world constraints of capacity and resources which will challenge the designer-participants, this will be no more impactful than similar environmental realities within other constructivist endeavors. The Design Lab was also designed in consideration of the described characteristics of Constructivist Pedagogy (Richardson, 2003, pg. 1626). These include, considerations of student-centeredness, promotion of exploratory group dialogue within relevant knowledge domains, the unplanned introduction of Formal Domain Knowledge<\/em>, and opportunities for students to build knowledge through engaging in designed tasks, interwoven with mindfulness and meta-awareness of one\u2019s own learning process as a result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Design Lab will leverage ideas in constructivist pedagogy, through participation in intentionally planned collaborative, knowledge building activities, and through the creation of instructional objects and artifacts. Within the cohorts and semi-structured workgroups, faculty will work with curriculum support staff to build assessments, assignments, and other tools and resources for learning. Describing the relationship between learning and the creation of objects, seminal author and theorist in Constructionist pedagogy, Seymour Papert coined the phrase Objects to think with<\/em>. In the Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, Yazmin Kafai (2006) describes Papert\u2019s Objects to think with as \u201cobjects in the physical and digital world<\/em> <\/em>(such as programs, robots, and games) can become objects in the mind that help to construct, examine, and revise connections between old and new knowledge\u201d<\/em> (pg. 8). As a central aspect of the Design Lab is the idea of continuous and iterative improvement of curriculum. As such, curriculum objects will regularly be reflected upon and analyzed both individually and socially within the community of practitioners that will continually be expected to make and improve upon them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n The implementation and success of the Design Lab will depend in part on the successful management of identity change of throughout the life of the project. Virtually all participants will be engaging in new activities in which their identities will be socially constructed and evolve through changes in practice, shifts in organizational structure and an increased expectation of innovativeness. The connections between learning and identity have been long considered in the work of (Lave & Wenger 1991, Brown 2001, Wenger 2015), and the psychological and emotional implications of such have long been ignored by practitioners of curriculum design. Lave & Wenger (1991) argue that \u201c\u2026<\/em>learning and a sense of identity are inseparable: They are aspects of the same phenomenon.\u201d<\/em>(loc. 1321) <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Learning and identity in the workplace are also tightly connected in the literature but ignored in practice. Brown and Duguid, (2001) argue that learning \u201c\u2026 doesn’t just involve the acquisition of facts about the world, it also involves acquiring the ability to act in the world in socially recognized ways.\u201d (pg. 200) As faculty in particular experience a shift in their job expectations pertaining to curriculum development in the process of engaging in new activities in social contexts with other faculty and experts in different domains, identity management will be an important consideration. Wenger (2015) argues for more than just consideration, but support when he writes, \u201cIf learning is not just about \u2018learning to do\u2019 but is also, importantly, about \u2018learning to be\u2019 then those who have a role in supporting learning need to pay explicit attention to supporting identity work.\u201d (loc. 935) With this in mind, special attention will be paid to the transition of the identities of the various stakeholder groups in the several ways outlined below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of particular consideration will be the identity of the faculty and the expectation that they apply their research experience and expertise to the issues of student success and curriculum quality. Through work in the design lab, Faculty become more powerful in their ability to impact students through the increased access to curriculum-building tools and expertise, collaborative workshops and other application of practice with the communities and groups which have been self-organized around their individual practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Faculty will be required to use data to inform their decision making process and provide a rationale. It will be up to faculty to select from a variety of tried and true research methods from quantitative, to qualitative and mixed methods as well. While some questions will best be answered in terms of the experimental and quasi-experimental research design (Creswell, 2012), surely others will lend themselves to more of a phenomenological, ethnographic, or grounded theory approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a way of tying the previous experiences and existing identities of faculty as creators of knowledge within their domain of practice the promotion of innovation in curriculum development, will be tied explicitly to the Design-Based Research <\/em>methodology as described in Barab & Squire, (2009). Developed in the early 1990\u2019s by Anne Brown, design-based research provides a simple and yet effective paradigm for the data-driven iterative development and improvement of curriculum. The utilization of the DBR framework is basis for the moniker Design Lab,<\/em> and has continued to be a significant component of the vision of the Design Lab itself. The complex and multifaceted nature of the Design Lab makes it somewhat difficult to describe, but using the metaphor of the curriculum laboratory, provides a culturally relevant reference, to an existing schema that helps transmit the vision and identity of the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order to inform the effort to integrate workplace learning (in this case, faculty professional development) into practice and innovation, literature on professional development theory and practice will be considered, with particular attention paid to the idea of combined expertise and requisite domains of knowledge required to designing learning experiences. The work of Lee S. Shulman will be briefly discussed and offered as a foundation for a more complex discussion of domain expertise required for constructing meaningful learning experiences at Online University in particular. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nearly thirty years ago now, Shulman argued that effective teaching and learning was a fundamentally a result of the combination of two distinct types of domain knowledge when he Introduced the term and the concept of Pedagogical Content Knowledge<\/em> (PCK) <\/em>to the conversations surrounding developing well prepared and effective teachers. Good teaching, he argued depended upon the meaningful and synergistic combination of Content Knowledge<\/em> from ones\u2019 domain of subject matter expertise, with knowledge of Pedagogical practices that support learning. Simply put by Shulman (1987) himself, \u201c\u2026teaching necessarily begins with a teacher\u2019s understanding of what is to be learned and how it is to be taught.\u201d (pg. 7) <\/p>\n\n\n\n While there has been little resistance or argument against the idea that the two most significant characteristics for success in teaching and learning are a combination of Pedagogical and Content Knowledge in a traditional classroom environment, the online environment requires additional considerations, that many educators have yet to consider. As a result, the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework proposed by Mishra and Koehler (2006) will be a foundational element in the design and implementation of the OU Design Lab. The addition of the Technological Knowledge<\/em> domain to Schulman\u2019s Pedagogical Content Knowledge provides a more powerful lens to the design and facilitation effective teaching and learning completely mediated by technology (see Figure 2.1). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 2.1, Technical Pedagogical and Content Knowledge domain diagram<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 2.1 shows the interrelationship of the knowledge domains that help form the TPACK framework. At the intersection of the three domains of knowledge lies complex, situated form of knowledge that Mishra and Koehler (2006) refer to as Technical Pedagogical Content Knowledge, which represents the ideal combination of domains of knowledge to be able to teach content in technology and media based environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two ways in which the TPACK framework will be used in relation to the OU Design Lab; first as professional development framework, and second as a design framework for learning with technology. As an explicit Professional Development framework, TPACK allows for new conversations with faculty and about faculty professional development in ways the acknowledge and validate their content knowledge while simultaneously acknowledging the additional domains of knowledge required to engage in effective design of learning experiences. This will be particularly important as collaborators representing domain knowledge areas outside of the faculty member\u2019s expertise contribute to the design of the course which is historically the faculty member\u2019s purview alone. Recognizing the need for additional expertise helps to form a base for collaboration between the variety of experts involved in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Equally as important as providing a new way to view the expertise required in facilitating learning online, is the specific focus on technology that TPACK provides which allows for new ways to think about leveraging technology for learning. As more and more educational institutions offer curriculum online, more and more, designers and educators like those at OU, are expected to leverage technology for purpose of learning. With a vast proliferation of tools and opinions about their affordances, it has become even more important to critically analyze the ways in which technology impacts learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The importance of thoughtfully considering the mediation of learning through technology becomes more apparent when analyzed to through the lens of critical author and philosopher of media and communications, Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan (1964) argued compellingly that \u201cThe Medium is the Message\u201d<\/em>, highlighting the inextricable relationship between a given medium and the intended message it is intended to deliver. Historically, many courses and assignments at Online University have been designed with little to no specific consideration of affordances of the medium can be intentionally leveraged the in relation to the intent of the message, resulting in ineffective and sometimes counterproductive implementations of technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The impact of technology on creating and delivering learning experiences cannot be overestimated at Online University, given that the large majority of OU students experience the nearly all of their learning within the Learning Management System. Online University uses Pearson\u2019s Learning Studio<\/em>, which like many learning management systems (LMS), is a password-protected environment, in which academic courses and content are delivered by the university, facilitated by faculty, and engaged in by students. This virtual space is largely where formal assessments are completed, compliance-related attendance and identity information captured and verified, and not the least of which, where student learning is expected to take place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The LMS is the medium, what is the message?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conceived upon the aforementioned assumptions of the practices of the cognitivist learning theories, LMSs, have historically been designed like traditional classrooms, based on the goal of separating the learner from the distractions of the world, and promoting focus on the teaching and narrative of the instructor. The very issues that Wenger (1999) pointed out related to traditional classrooms have arguably been reproduced in the virtual-world through the widespread adoption of the LMS\/VLE model. Students are still largely forced to demonstrate their knowledge out of context through conversations with other novices talking about and describing what they perceive the practice of subject to be, but hardly if ever engaging in in the practice directly. Assessments are largely unauthentic and abstract, not only providing a poor measure of learning of value but leading students to become frustrated and bored. The same problems that plague very students of Online University students in their struggle for success in institutionally designed environments, are the very same problems that plague professional development efforts for the faculty who participate in curriculum development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a starting point for the Design Lab initiative, all resources and content on the designated web-space will be constructed and curated by teams of internal stakeholders, and shared publicly for discussion and meaning-making. Unlike the traditional LMS mediated learning experience, faculty and staff will utilize a combination of tools including Google Drive, Hangouts, and other collaborative tools, wikis, blogs and discussion through social media that will allow participants to construct their own understandings and share with the group for collective discussion and evaluation. The importance of aligning the technology tools with their intended function cannot be overstated, and is a significant consideration in the design of curriculum assets, as well as the Design Lab itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n An intentional approach to change management has been implemented in the conception and implementation of the Design Lab initiative, much of which is drawn from the literature of innovation and change. The implementation of the Design Lab project has been organized into three phases. Because the project has been in motion for some time, portions of the first two phases of the proposal have already been completed, and will be described in past tense reflectively. The phases include Preparation and Planning<\/em> which has already concluded, Relationship and Community Building<\/em> which is currently the focus, and finally Ongoing Management and Iterative Improvement<\/em> to continue into the future. Each phase contains specific objectives used to guide the implementation and ongoing management of the initiative. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though significant aspects of the groundwork for the Design Lab initiative had been laid for several years leading up to formal discussions, the initiative will be considered to have officially began with the formation of the core leadership team overseeing the development of curriculum at Online University in early 2015. At the core of the group, or Guiding Coalition<\/em> (Kotter, 1995) are the Provost\/CLO, the Vice Provost of Curriculum and Innovation, all five Deans of the four academic Colleges and Division of General Education, the V.P. of Assessment, and are supported by the Executive V.P.\/Chief Academic Officer and other senior leadership from the parent organization. The depth and span of the guiding coalition is formidable and will also need to be managed to ensure continued cohesiveness and effectiveness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the AVP of Curriculum and Instructional Design, I am the operational leader of the initiative, managing the daily decisions, proposing plans for implementation, and reporting back on progress. In this role, I will both leverage existing Social Capital (Portes, 1998) and a recently increased span of influence over the curriculum and technology teams to help bring the vision into a reality. Previous successes in redesigning the classroom, designing a an asynchronous orientation session that changed the way students were on boarded, and adding a global item in all courses that provides 2 minute or less videos that address common student problems and questions, have all increased my personal visibility in the organization and the network of others built working with people in cross-functional groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In April of 2015, as a result of efforts to increase the efficiency and collaboration of the OU curriculum development a reorganization of staff resulted in the addition of 14 additional people to my reporting structure, 4 Program Managers and 10 Curriculum Specialists. Having direct reporting relationships with an increased number of participants in the process has allowed for a more efficient change in processes and culture with the group, and increased the scope of influence of the Design Lab itself by removing operational barriers within the domain of my control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cultural environment of Online University has been challenged recently by several interrelated reasons. In the broader online learning marketplace, web, television and radio ads have become saturated in recent years with commercials for higher-education providers accessible through distance learning technology, increasing competition for students. As more and more schools have taken their curriculum online, the marketplace has become crowded and institutions have been challenged to differentiate their brand and offerings in response. The rapid scalability of institutions with online course offerings, pressures the market, even though it is actually increasing in size. According to a 2013 report from the Babson Survey Research Group, enrollment in at least one online course has increased from under 10% of total student enrollment in 2002, to over 35% of total enrollment in 2011, (Allen & Seaman, 2013). <\/p>\n\n\n\n To adjust to lowered student enrollment and operating revenue for the university, Reductions in Force<\/em> have become a seasonal expectation, and the cultural climate has been negatively impacted each time. The culture has evolved into one which operates under the fear of loss, and as a result has led to increased attrition, lowered employee engagement scores and a general air of tension. Resultantly, staff and faculty alike are more receptive to institutional directives and initiatives that are developed and supported by university leadership. Being perceived as a team-player and as having an organization wide perspective in the design and implementation of initiatives, has become a security blanket in the midst of turbulent times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A significant driver in the implementation of the Design lab was the sense of urgency created as a direct result of two projects led by the Provost of Online University which have emphasized the use of data and research methods to improve curriculum metrics. One project targeted the 50 most performing courses in the university for data-driven improvement, while the other involved publishing design research on Worked Examples with well-known Cognitive Load Theorist, and cognitive researcher, John Sweller, professor Emeritus at University of New South Wales, in Sydney Australia. A brief description of each will be provided below to highlight the essential elements of empowerment of curriculum development faculty and the creation of short term wins through collaborative efforts to improve specific problems in OU courses and programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In early 2015, under the direction of the Provost, and supported by several key members of the guiding coalition, the Top 50 Course Project<\/em> was initiated. The Dean of each college was tasked to improve the measured performance of the lowest 10 performing courses in their area curricular area over the course of a year. Academic Deans and other leaders in Assessment and Instructional Design and Quality Assurance met with each of the four Colleges and the Division of General Education, to discuss ideas about how to approach working with faculty to strategically intervene with curriculum change. Invoking the thinking of Tim Brown and his published work on Design Thinking, leadership of the Top 50 project were encouraged to think differently about the issues being addressed specifically displaying the characteristics of design thinkers with regard to the”\u2026willing and enthusiastic acceptance of competing constraints is the foundation of design thinking.” (pg.17)<\/p>\n\n\n\n With this charge, the academic leadership from each college met over several months forming subgroups and working across normal organizational lines to help provide solutions and interventions. This initiative brought course data and performance improvement to the forefront of the conversation surrounding curriculum development, and represented a significant change in expectations about the role and accountability of the academic leadership related to course performance. For the first time, the Executive Deans of the colleges were made responsible and empowered to engage in the ongoing, iterative improvement of the curriculum which was very impactful in supporting the collaborative elements of the Design Lab. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Through this and similar work, the ongoing dialogue with leadership and faculty have evolved to center on a collective vision of creating meaningful and effective learning experiences for students, through intentional, coordinated efforts, maximizing resources and leveraging the available Rich Data<\/em> in thoughtful and productive cross-disciplinary collaboration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the fall of 2014, faculty of Online university were invited to apply for University Fellows Grants of up to $10,000 for research performed related to issues of teaching and learning. One grant winning team, led by the provost, the department chair in Psychology, the AVP of Instructional Design and Curriculum, along with a group of faculty from a variety of curriculum areas proposed to measure the effects of Worked Examples in ill-defined domains<\/em> (Kyun, Kalyuga & Sweller, 2013)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly to the top 50 course project described above, faculty were responsible for selecting the courses, assignments, and explanation types chosen as a target of a design intervention, but in this case, the tool was predetermined to be a Worked Example (Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2003), in accordance with the design and nature of the study. With help from the instructional design and technology teams, collaborative working sessions were designed and facilitated to combine learning and innovation with practice, in the creation of worked examples for specific curriculum related problems. Over a period of several months, faculty met for 90 minutes through adobe Connect web conferencing platform, and talked through the creation and iteration of each other\u2019s examples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While still in the development phase of the design intervention, the of the Worked Examples research project the faculty and staff involved have created new and exciting ways to target and intervene in difficult instructional problems through leveraging of Worked Examples, and have created an excitement and a buzz around the pending publication opportunity. The success of these initiatives and others will be highlighted regularly to the larger academic body through the Faculty Focus, monthly newsletter, announcements and messages from the Provost and other leadership and will serve to provide encouragement of sustained effort in the change initiative (Kotter, 1995)<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the challenges of working with a distributed workforce, within a large organization is the ability to maintain consistent, high-impact communication for the purposes of building a common culture and sense of community. Historically, communication of initiatives and information to the thousands of faculty and staff of Online University have lacked both consistency and creativity, often times resulting in what is perceived as an information vacuum from those not tightly connected to the day to day operations of individual initiatives. For the last year, the In conjunction with the OU Design Lab initiative, technology will be leveraged to attempt to mitigate the communications challenges of the past. Focusing on multiple channels of communication modalities, leveraging traditional and non-traditional media alike, social media platforms such as Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter can be easily utilized help to connect people with ideas and discussion around topics and objects of interest to the design lab community. The affordances of these tools allow for news and information to be shared in ways that are already integrated into the daily practices of most people, empower participants to act on the vision with their own agency as a driver and of a true participant centered community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the ongoing management and iterative development of the OU Design Lab, the empowerment of typically un-empowered participants. Through much of the reorganization of staff and changes in curriculum practice and process, intentional efforts have been made to increase the sense of Agency<\/em> of the individual participants, as adherence to formal, generic processes has faded to include more collaborative working sessions and goal oriented projects. Ahearn, (2001) provides a deep analysis on agency that results in a usable but incomplete but provisional definition of Agency<\/em> as \u201cthe socioculturally mediated capacity to act\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of the administrative curriculum staff have been underutilized in terms of talents and skills as a result of the rigid and outdated structure of the many teams that made up the larger department. As a result frustrations and lowered morale have developed in conjunction with other aforementioned organizational changes in combination with outside pressures. The social constructivist approach of the Design Lab, allows for some release from the constant drudgery and environmental pressures of the previous methods of practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Design Lab project will be assessed through using both direct and indirect measures of assessment, analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Curriculum design interventions created in the OU Design Lab, and implemented in the classroom will be evaluated based partly upon data collected from student activity and outcome-achievement data collected within the class. Understanding that the effectiveness of curriculum interventions can be assessed in a variety of ways and through a variety of lenses and theoretical constructs faculty will have the ability to construct and measure against data they deem particularly important to their defined issue and within their particular discipline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless of the specific methods used by faculty to assess the success of course-specific interventions, two essential components of the process, will be an operational focus for Design Lab Participation. First, all measures and assessments will be co-created by faculty, staff and leadership. Doing so will help encourage ownership of the valuation and examination of quality of design from a measure that represents all stakeholders involved and invested in course design and development. The second aspect of focus for the evaluation of course design quality is that the measures chosen, be consistently applied and continually evaluated resulting in iterative improvement. Ensuring that the co-designed rubrics will not remain completely static, provides an opportunity to both address shortcomings of the measure and also to increase the effectiveness and utility of the rubrics over time. More importantly it provides a Boundary Object for working between communities of faculty and administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order to understand the way student performance is measured and analyzed in the context of the Design Lab, a short overview of the model of assessment at Online University will be provided. The learning outcomes model at Online University aligns closely with Kuh and Ewell (2010) who insist that \u201c\u2026colleges and universities must become smarter and better at assessing student learning outcomes, at using the resulting data to inform resource allocation and other decisions and at communicating to their constituents how well they are performing\u201d (pg. 3). With this goal as a foundational premise, Online University has invested a significant amount of time and energy into assessment tools and practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 3.1 below shows a Curriculum Map of Learning Outcomes<\/em> for the Bachelors of Arts in Instructional Design <\/em>at Online University. <\/em>Program Learning Outcomes are listed across the top axis while the course number, title and sequence of progression are listed on the the vertical axis. Within each cell of the matrix are a one of three color coded boxes representing whether a learning outcome is being initially Introduced<\/em> (Green), continually Reinforced<\/em> (Blue) or finally Mastered<\/em> (Red). With this simple visual tool, faculty are able to demonstrate to students, accreditors and program reviewers, exactly how programs are designed to build knowledge intentionally over time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Table 3.1- Bachelors of Arts in Instructional Design<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the student\u2019s progression in the program, a specific Program Learning Outcome such as the following from EDU120: \u201cApply universal design principles to instruction\u201d, will be introduced within the first few courses in the program through some sort of an assignment or activity. The PLO is then continuously reinforced in following classes through any number of assignments including formal facilitated discussions, written assignments, quizzes and through the creation of authentic artifacts of learning. Finally, the summative assessment for the program, the Capstone course measures the mastery of each of the program learning outcomes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Design interventions created in the Design Lab, will be measured in two main ways, primarily through rubrics developed by faculty. One of the central and most powerful tools that will be used to measure the impact of design interventions is the Learning Outcomes Assessment (LOA) system at Online University. The proprietary LOA tool, is not only the tool faculty interface with for tasks related to assessment and grading within Online University, but it aggregates and stores valuable student achievement data which has been essential in establishing a foundation and culture of assessment that is deeply engrained in the design and development process and university culture as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Effective Learning Outcome Assessment combined with intentional mapping and alignment of learning outcomes within courses and programs are the backbone of the curriculum design model at Online University. Utilizing the Backward Design framework described by Wiggins & McTighe (2005), all courses and programs are designed to scaffold learning and measure outcome achievement of faculty designed Learning Outcomes for each academic program and its compositional courses<\/p>\n\n\n\n Development and revisions of courses and assignments are accompanied by development of rubrics and grading criteria that are then loaded into the LOA tool through a back end interface. On the front end, students submit work and faculty use the system to evaluate and comment upon the student work. Figure 3.3 shows the interface that faculty use in the assessment of student work. The rubric criteria on the left hand side of the image contain specific criteria, designed under the direction of the fulltime faculty and used by all faculty for grading and LOA assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 3.3 Front End of Rubric-based Assessment of Student Work at Online University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order for the participants of the Design Lab to have a common conception of the criteria for quality within courses and programs, an initiative has been undertaken to construct specific design and quality rubrics. Several rubrics have already been created through a process of faculty driven committees charged with helping to improve the quality of curriculum through targeted application of the measure and subsequent redesign of course assignments, assessments and discussion questions. Over the course of several months, faculty led groups worked diligently to discuss and evaluate multiple perspectives on course curriculum quality, narrowing down to individual rubrics which target different course elements. By empowering the faculty to more specifically define what is meant by quality courses and programs, an increased sense of curriculum ownership and a closer association of the faculty role with the identity of curriculum development practitioner, has been less difficult than anticipated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One significant affordance of the tool is the ability of the faculty to collect and analyze data in ways that illuminate phenomenon not otherwise detectable by human sensory perception alone. Information about student performance can be visualized within a single section of class, or at the programmatic level, and aggregated measure of all assessments captured, or any combination therein determined appropriate. Figure 3.2 shows an example of how learning outcome assessment data can be visualized to help determine the effect of instructional interventions, in EDU120 Principles of Instructional Design, in relation to LO1, with related metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 3.2 Learning Outcomes Dashboard Interface<\/p>\n\n\n\n The project will in part be assessed by a qualitative analysis of anonymous feedback for the participants. The beginning of the project a qualitative: open-ended survey was designed and administered to determine the lived experiences of the faculty and staff involved in curriculum development. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis and used to inform the vision creation by the guiding coalition, focusing on information transparency and availability, increase desire for faculty agency, and less administrative impact on curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thought the initial survey was informative in helping to gauge the perceptions of participants in curriculum development, if would be a foolish to stop at a single measure. The Design Lab will regularly offer channels for open and anonymous feedback on processes, resources on an ongoing basis. Having honest, dialogue in the community while simultaneously providing alternate channels to raise issues in nonthreatening ways is a key component of the measurement of the effectiveness of the Design Lab in serving the broad range of stakeholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Due to the ongoing nature of the Design Lab and the expectation of future improvement and iteration, a summative assessment for the initiative is challenging to create. The guiding coalition meets twice monthly to discuss progress, resolve issues and determine future directions. One of the benefits of having a strong guiding coalition representing leadership of all of the stakeholder participants is the ability to communicate with other leaders both spontaneously and at planned intervals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Members of the guiding coalition comprise a large part of the Provost\u2019s Cabinet, a group of Senior Academic Leaders consisting of Department Directors, VPs and AVPs, Deans, and the Provost. and topics are discussed regarding a number of different projects and initiatives, etc. The Curriculum\/Design Lab team will provide regular updates on the progress of the design lab, and cabinet members will have time to ask questions and work through issues of significance on a bimonthly basis. Additionally, regular monthly meetings have been scheduled with the Academic Deans to discuss issues of prioritization of course developments or other emergent issues of concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahearn, L. M. (2001). Language and agency. Annual review of anthropology<\/em>, 109-137.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen, E., & Jeff, S. (2013). Changing Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States. 1-47. Retrieved June 1, 2015, from http:\/\/www.onlinelearningsurvey.com\/reports\/changingcourse.pdf<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n freedom<\/em>. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brown, J. S., Denning, S., Groh, K., & Prusak, L. (2005). Storytelling in organizations: Why <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n storytelling is transforming 21<\/em>st<\/sup><\/em> century organizations and management<\/em>. Burlington, MA: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (1991). Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. Organization science<\/em>, 2<\/em>(1), 40-57.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brown, Tim. “Design thinking.” Harvard business review<\/em> 86.6 (2008): 84.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education<\/em>. New York: Kappa Delta Pi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Horn, L. J., & Carroll, C. D. (1996). Nontraditional undergraduates: Trends in enrollment from 1986 to 1992 and persistence and attainment among 1989-90 beginning postsecondary students. Postsecondary education descriptive analysis reports. Statistical analysis report. (No. NCES-97-578) Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide<\/em>. NYU press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kafai, Yasmin B. Constructionism<\/em>. na, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kanselaar, G. (2002). Constructivism and socio-constructivism. Retrieved November, 20, 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching.Educational psychologist<\/em>, 41<\/em>(2), 75-86.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Koehler, M. J., Mishra, P., Kereluik, K., Shin, T. S., & Graham, C. R. (2014). The technological pedagogical content knowledge framework. In Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 101-111). Springer New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard business review<\/em>, 73<\/em>(2), 59-67.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kuh, G. D., & Ewell, P. T. (2010). The state of learning outcomes assessment in the United States. Higher Education Management and Policy<\/em>, 22<\/em>(1), 1-20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kyun, S., Kalyuga, S., & Sweller, J. (2013). The effect of worked examples when learning to write essays in English literature. The Journal of Experimental Education<\/em>, 81<\/em>(3), 385-408.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation<\/em>. New <\/p>\n\n\n\n York: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2003). Not \u201cwhat\u201d but \u201chow\u201d: Becoming design-wise about educational technology. What teachers should know about technology: Perspectives and practices<\/em>, 122<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nImproving Curriculum Development Practice: <\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Rethinking learning and Practice<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Learning and Identity Change:<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Overcoming Challenges with Technology <\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Strategic Management of Organizational Change: <\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Preparing and Planning <\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Drivers of Change<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Example: Worked Examples Research with John Sweller.<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Relationship and Community Building<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Ongoing Management and Iterative Improvement<\/h1>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Assessment <\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Assessment across the Curriculum<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Assessment of Design Interventions<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Faculty Developed Quality Rubrics<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Data Visualization<\/h1>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Participant Feedback<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Ongoing Phenomenological Assessment<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
References<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n