Not Better – Not Worse. Just Different

KIC faculty attended a series of workshops where they developed their pedagogy, course design, and student engagement skills, to enhance the delivery of online courses and ensure that students develop skills that are relevant to the modern job market.

One of the workshops covered Fundamentals of Course Design and Online Pedagogy. The attendees learned to identify components of intentional course design, articulate learning objectives, assessment strategy, and student activities for a course, lesson, or topic. They also learned to incorporate strategies for fostering student-centered online learning experiences. The workshop highlighted the different nature of online learning and its impact on the consequent student learning experience, focusing on the importance of pedagogical skills, rather than technology, and motivation.

The topic of motivation was also discussed in a workshop that revolved around Student Engagement. Based on the concept of active learning, KIC faculty learned to implement strategies that enable building goal-driven communities within the scope of the course, aiming to forge robust instructor-student and student-student interactions. Student-centered learning that is done in small groups and utilizes their inquiries, enables the development of skills that are needed in the modern workplace.

Faculty development initiative has been introduced in line with KIC’s shift to the distance learning and blended learning formats, to encourage the development of quality online courses. As online education is becoming key to how students of all ages learn, such initiatives enable faculty members to continuously redesign and rethink their roles in the educational process, and effectively keep students on their academic track.