DIVE: Designing for Virtual Engagement

At the request of faculty and program directors, the Baylor Learning Design Team created DIVE (Designing Instruction for Virtual Engagement), a six week program for fa­­­­culty interested in learning the theory and practice of designing and teaching high quality online and hybrid courses.

Testimonials from DIVE participants:

“It will change the way you think about online course design.”

“DIVE is a hands-on course that teaches you how to utilize learning design tools.”

“If you are new to online teaching, I would recommend it!”

Registration for Fall 2023 is full, please complete the registeration form below if you are interested in Spring 2024 cohort.

Facilitating the Fall 2023 certification are:

• Dr. Laine Scales Professor of Social Work, Baylor Master Teacher,
• Yue Ma, Senior Learning Experience Designer

Total Time: 30-35 hours over six weeks (about 5 hours per week).

Steps to Completion

1. Apply to the program – priority acceptance will be granted to fifteen full-time faculty members, with any remaining spots available for part-time faculty.
2. Complete six-week-long modules that include a 1-hour online synchronous discussion. The synchronous session attendance is required to be considered for acceptance into the program. These meetings will be held via Zoom on Tuesdays from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm in Fall 2023.

Who can participate?

The DIVE program is designed especially for full-time faculty, but part-time faculty may participate on a “stand-by” basis.  To ensure a quality experience for all we are limiting each cohort to 15 faculty members. Upon completion, participants will earn a Baylor DIVE Digital Badge of Completion through Credly.

How can I register?
If you have questions, please email the Learning Design team at learningdesign@baylor.edu.  Otherwise, click the button below to register.

Register Here

If you are interested in DIVE, but unable to attend due to the date and time of the sessions, please email us at learningdesign@baylor.edu and we can add you to the waitlist for the next DIVE offering (Note that Fall live sessions are Tuesdays at 4 pm).

When can I access the DIVE course in Canvas?

The DIVE course becomes available on the first day of class. The fall cohort starts on Sep 1st, 2023. However, the course can be open and accessible prior to its scheduled start date. Participants will be notified via email when the course is accessible.

Can I withdraw from DIVE?

We will accept withdrawals from DIVE up until the first day of classes for the semester DIVE is offered. Due to the limited spots for the DIVE Certificate, we encourage you to complete the program once it starts. If you choose to withdraw after the start of the program, wait-listed faculty members will be disadvantaged and miss out on the DIVE offering.

Module Descriptions

Module 1: Building Online Community and Connecting with Your Students

Connectedness is critically important to student success in online courses. Our online students articulate through annual success surveys how important engagement is to their success. Online engagement manifests itself through four key interactions: instructor to student, student to student, student to content and student to technology. We will explore strategies for building a learning community that promotes connectedness through these four key interactions. As part of this effort, we will create introductory videos that will help establish a culture of engagement and connection in the online classroom.

Module 2: Mapping your Online Course

Your vision is in place. Now it is time to start organizing your course with a course map. This session will explore the benefits of course maps and how they are the foundation of designing a course. They help us ensure that learning builds and scaffolds throughout the course. As we begin constructing our courses, it is important to understand how to calculate total learning time for your course. Faculty new to online course development often overload or underload their courses causing frustrations for students. We will conclude this session by sharing strategies for “Being Baylor” in your online courses.

Module 3: Organizing Your Course

Well organized courses can reduce student stress. It’s our goal to reduce the administrative and cognitive load for students, which allows our students to better focus on learning the content at hand. We will explore strategies for organizing your course that builds upon the work you completed in Modules 1–2. We will discuss the importance of using a consistent course structure, naming conventions and flow that focuses students on mastering the course content.

Module 4: Online Learning Activities

Every course is unique and can be built using a wide variety of learning activities and techniques.  However, there are some basic components that are often found in many online courses so this session will introduce you to some of the popular, common ones.  We will cover discussion boards and look at what makes for a good topic, what the best practices are for managing the discussion, and how to get students engaged and active in them.  Then we will look at ways to assess learning that go beyond traditional tests.  We will provide a rationale for using authentic assessment and provide plenty of ideas. 

Module 5: Video - Passive to Active

Using video in your online course can make it come alive!  Video is great for creating instructor presence, delivering lecture content, holding live meetings, facilitating group work, and engaging your students.  Through the use of video quizzing techniques, they can become interactive too.  This session will look at both asynchronous approaches and synchronous approaches using popular tools like Zoom.  We will cover tips for creating lecture videos using iPads, tablets, and whiteboards.  We will dive further into Kaltura and explore alternatives to screen capturing along with more robust editing tools and options for captioning. Now that you have created multiple forms of assessment, we will show you how to build & incorporate rubrics into your online course to facilitate grading and measure outcomes.

Module 6: Facilitating Your Course

Your course has been carefully designed and now it is time to deliver!  This module will prepare you for the day-to-day delivery of the course, whether it is completely asynchronous or includes live synchronous sessions. A well-designed course must be executed in a way that learners feel connected to the instructor, to one another, and to the subject. Participants will learn how three elements: Connection, Content, and Continuation may be woven through the delivery process. After reviewing the materials on facilitation, you will have a chance to practice by creating a production sheet for a live session to follow one of the modules you designed.