Developing Online Engineering Courses: A Resource Kit for Collaboration Between Faculty and Instructional Designers

Abstract

The rise of online courses has created an ongoing demand for instructional designers in higher education. Collaboration between faculty and instructional designers in developing online engineering courses has therefore increased. Potential challenges during the collaboration can be addressed when faculty and instructional designers have a mutual understanding of instructional design principles. This article provides a resource kit that contains a synthesis of online learning theories and examples collected from online engineering courses. These examples can help create a course design that recognizes students’ cognitive load and provides meaningful interactions.

Partnerships and Pedagogy: Transforming the BA Online

“…In the traditional lecture theatre or tutorial space, academics are generally unused to another party reviewing their course content and teaching style and recommending best practice (Brigance, 2011). Additionally, teaching staff who are unfamiliar with online course delivery often have little insight into what learning designers can do to help them to facilitate involved and interactive learning experiences (Hsu, 2020). The complexity of designing learning for online environments at the tertiary level is summed up by McInnes (2019):…”