Nancy M. Heckel’s Updates

Moving from teaching to instructional design

I'm a fully remote professor teaching composition and literature online, and I've been teaching for almost 8 years completely online (with an additional 7 years teaching in person). For the entire 15 years, I've been designing my own courses, and during my time fully online, I've also designed master courses for other faculty to teach, and taught courses designed by others. I've also done a fair amount of e-learning as part of my professional development for my current position.

My experience in online teaching and learning has been mixed. I've designed and taught in some really solid and well-made classrooms, but have also had to deal with really terribly-made courses both as an instructor and as a learner. Over the years teaching online, I've become very familiar with the benefits and drawbacks of online learning, and I know for certain that it's not for everyone (and I tend to laugh any time someone declares that online courses are the death of the traditional in-person university).

The reason I've enrolled in the E-learning Ecologies course on Coursera (and therefore, found my way here) is, honestly, to add a more formal e-learning course to my resume; I'm working on transitioning from a hybrid teaching-instructional design position into instructional design only, and I need more credentials to make my experience official. I also hope to get some different angles on e-learning problems I've run into so that I can use tech more fully and appropriately in the classrooms I design.