Reimagining the Virtual Classroom
Fall 2019
DCE's DesignPlus department
is an engine of innovation
for online learning.
Camille Funk believes the future of higher education will
be highly adaptable, high-tech and micro-targeted to
a student's individual needs, reshaping the very idea of
grades and units. And as director of the DCE's DesignPlus
department, this expert instructional designer is on the
front lines making this future happen.
Introduced in 2017, DesignPlus is on a mission to advance
and standardize cutting-edge course delivery and
curriculum for DCE programs, serving as an incubator
of ideas and putting UCI ahead of the pack in online
education, Funk said.
“Simply put, the DesignPlus mission is to engineer innovative
learning experiences,” she added. “Given we're a new
department, we have had a layered approach to
executing this mission. Our first steps were to provide
uniformity to our courses, and we did this through creating
and applying templates and style guides. Our next step
has been to focus on developing innovative programs,
designing for multiple outputs, and creating intentional
media that align with learning objectives.”
Her vision focuses on three key elements: Encouraging
a culture of experimentation and resilience; developing
sustainable and data-driven products and experiences;
and by iteration to continuously improve processes and
products.
The idea is to brainstorm, test and adapt advanced
educational models in new ways to engage students
and deliver innovative curriculum, while remaining flexible
enough to accommodate individual needs and special
circumstances.
“Adaptability is the future of online course design,”
said Funk, advisory board member for the DCE's new
Instructional Design for Higher Education certificate
program. “Determine exactly what a student already
knows, and what they need to learn, then targeting
curriculum and course design to fill that need.”
A former classroom teacher, Funk knows from experience
how traditional education can leave some students
behind while blocking others from learning at a more
advanced pace. Some would be obviously bored, way
ahead of the curve, while others would struggle just to
keep pace.
“My teaching experience has greatly influenced me,”
she said. “Because teachers face unique challenges
when interacting with students, instructional design can
plan for the ideal situation, but teaching experience helps
you navigate the exceptions, and most importantly the
individual student.”
“Anytime I had a lesson plan, it never quite went the way
it was intended because every learner is unique and
absorbs information in their own way.”
An innovation incubator
An accomplished instructional designer, Funk has
developed courses for USC, BYU and George Washington
University. Along the way she created the eDesign Shop, a
private for-profit enterprise that taps leading course design
team members throughout the country who are looking
to take on additional projects.
“The eDesign Shop, LLC works with universities and
institutions that need help to complete course development
projects,” she said. “It's turned out to be a great
innovation incubator for course design.”
Funk and her UCI DesignPlus team employ four “major
milestones” in their creative process. First is course planning
— creating a course map that outlines basic aspects of
the curriculum — followed by content creation. The
third step is building the course out in the Learning
Management System. Finally, there's a quality review to
make sure it meets the institution's standards for launch.
Sounds technical, but the key is a combination of storytelling
and marketing — getting students directly engaged
and involved with content rather than passively listening to a lecture, Funk said. It's a skill she honed as a freelancer
writing food reviews for a small newspaper in Utah, and as
author of two published books: Table for One and Learning
How to Read Using the Book of Mormon.
“Good writing and storytelling, creating a strong narrative,
and using marketing principles to appeal to students, are
absolutely essential ingredients to the instructional design
field,” she said. “With the tools we have to work with today,
it goes way beyond just delivering lectures and text. It's a
matter of writing scripts that deliver interactive experiences,
for instance, that directly engage each student.”
Funk believes that instructional design really boils down to
communication, and writing is one very important element.
“As I've explored and refined that skill, it has aided me in
becoming more student-centric.”
“Adaptability is the future of online course design. Determine exactly
what a student already knows, and what they need to learn, then
targeting curriculum and course design to fill that need.”
Camille Funk
Director, DesignPlus
Designing higher education
Online education today isn't just downloading a syllabus
and streaming a queue of class lectures. Although
asynchronous learning remains a useful online component,
allowing students to access lessons anywhere and anytime,
intentional synchronous learning is a dominant trend, Funk
said.
She feels it's important for students to experience lessons
and interact as a group, “not just passively watch a lecture
in bed.”
“There's definitely a trend toward synchronous mentorship,”
she added. “It lets students interact with the
instructor and each other, like sitting around a campfire.
That's a big part of the learning experience. It allows
students to network and instructors to recruit, creating
future professional relationships.”
Funk and her team aim to not only streamline and
standardize DCE courses, but to help define the future
of education. And there's a growing need to develop
instructional designers who can effectively do just that,
Funk said.
That's the mission behind the DCE's new Instructional
Design for Higher Education certificate program, an
especially promising path for teachers who want to
“leave behind the drama and politics” of classroom
teaching.
“There are great career opportunities for instructional
designers who can address the needs of higher
education,” she added. “Most of the IDs coming out
of school are trained for corporate education, and they
need to be totally retrained. We want to recruit IDs who
are already in synch — and we definitely would like to
tap into UCI to help fill needs for our department.”
Learn more at ce.uci.edu/highered