Instructional Design Showcase
The UCLA Teaching and Learning Center instructional designers work with faculty, librarians, software companies, and others to showcase interesting courses and uses of instructional technologies. Through these showcases, we:
- Celebrate the faculty’s teaching and design efforts in their courses,
- Share examples of innovative course design to enhance teaching and learning,
- Address pedagogical approaches and strategies in various courses and disciplines, and
- Highlight features of the Bruin Learn platform and other technologies.
The TLC often collaborates closely with the Bruin Learn Center of Excellence and other campus partners to bring these showcases to the UCLA community.
Arabic 102 A: Intermediate Arabic
In this course showcase, Prof. Hamza will demonstrate the effective use of digital teaching and learning tools in a communicative, flipped classroom model, structured around a ‘before, during, after’ format. She will showcase the successful integration of Bruin Learn features such as… More…
Reflection Sheets and Gradescope in PHYSICS 5B
In this showcase, Teaching Professor Josh Samani will describe and illustrate the use of in-class reflection sheets, an analog replacement for digital response systems (such as i>clicker) with some notable advantages over such systems. More…
Public Health 50A – Introduction to Public Health
This showcase highlights how a Bruin Learn course site and its integrated tools have been selected and adopted in this newly designed Introduction to Public Health course. More…
Honors 136—Art, Entertainment, & Social Change
In this showcase, the instructor will explain and illustrate the genesis and process of scaffolding a seminar aiming for student success in a student-led online hybrid Honors seminar. Student performance is extraordinarily engaged and advanced; student response is overwhelmingly enthusiastic. More…
Nursing M172 & M172XP – Care Work: Disability Justice and Health Care
This showcase highlights accessibility and engaged learning through the instructor’s experience designing a multidisciplinary two-course package. Community-engaged learning personalized disability care policy and caregiving practice through reflective relationship building. More…
ENGCOMP 403 – Language Pedagogy: Form, Meaning, and Function
This Instructional Design Showcase will explore several online-synchronous course design elements that were developed during the pandemic and have been continually refined in the years after based on student feedback. More…
From Data to Action: Bruin Learn Analytics in Your Course
This showcase demonstrates the tools and reports Bruin Learn provides to data on student engagement, participation, and achievement. You will learn about the tools and reports Bruin Learn provides to data on student engagement, participation, and achievement. More…
A ChatGPT Experiment in Honors 37W (Sampling and Remix: The Aesthetics and Politics of Cultural Appropriation)
This showcase focuses on a specific use of ChatGPT in a Spring 2023 Honors Collegium Writing II course. Through the presentation, the instructor shares how students tried out and reflected on co-writing with a chatbot. The instructor also provides context and a rationale for this particular use of ChatGPT. More…
English Composition 2 – Approaches to University Writing | Meta-Narrative and the Narrative Self
This showcase demonstrates how the instructor uses Bruin Learn to actively engage undergraduate students in a first-year composition course. This showcase demonstrates how the instructor uses Bruin Learn to actively engage undergraduate students in a first-year composition course. Several essential Bruin Learn tools and features, such as homepage, modules, assignments, and gradebook, are discussed. More…
Using Slack to Build an Equitable and Diverse Learning Community in Education
This showcase demonstrates how the instructor uses Slack in undergraduate courses to engage and welcome students, streamline communication, and conduct formative assessments. Several possible pedagogical uses of Slack will be shared and discussed, including: community building; shared course FAQs; TA communication; making students’ thinking accessible to their peers; “Slack Hands” (a strategy for more inclusive participation); and collaborative study guide for quizzes. More…
Scandinavian Studies 60 – Introduction to Nordic Cinema
This showcase demonstrates how the instructor transforms students’ in-person learning experience to asynchronous online. By adopting different learning strategies and approaches, the instructor introduces blogging, podcasting, and peer review to students to encourage their participation and fosters an active learning environment. The informal discussions that increased in the podcasting activities allow students to engage deeply with the content and also interact more with their peers. Several features of Bruin Learn, such as modules, discussion, pages, have also been used and designed to welcome students in this asynchronous Nordic Cinema class. More…
Engaging STEM Students with Perusall – Cluster M71 and Soc Gen M144
This showcase demonstrates how the instructor selected and integrated Perusall as one of the engagement solutions in two different Biology and Society courses. The two courses are different in many ways, one is a large general education course, and the other is an upper division elective in the Human Biology and Society major, but both are benefited from using Perusal to encourage collaborative learning and enhance students’ critical thinking. More…
Islamic Studies M20 – Introduction to Islam
This showcase demonstrates how the instructor and TAs have applied different design approaches to build the Introduction to Islam course in Bruin Learn and adopted a few educational technology tools to bring an immersive learning environment to students. More…
Hypothesis – A Social Annotation Tool
This showcase demonstrates the set-up, ideas, and pedagogical strategies of using Hypothesis, a social annotation tool, for different subjects and modalities. UCLA Professor of Urban Planning, Adam Millard-Ball will informally discuss how he implements Hypothesis for social reading assignments in his courses. More…
Nursing 171 – Public Health Nursing
This showcase demonstrates how Prof. Wiley uses several features and tools in Bruin Learn and digital portfolios in support of the competency-based curriculum design in N171 – Public Health Nursing. More…
Mathematics 32A – Calculus of Several Variables
This showcase demonstrates how Prof. Richard Wong uses Bruin Learn and other educational technology tools to establish an interactive and collaborative teaching and learning environment for MATH 32A – Calculus of Several Variables. More…
Geography 5 – People and Earth’s Ecosystems
This showcase demonstrates how Prof. Kyle Cavanaugh uses UCLA’s Bruin Learn course template and CidiLab’s Design Tools to redesign his Geography 5 course, including organizing the syllabus and module pages. More…
iClicker & iClicker Cloud – Students’ Response System and Polling Tool
The iClicker & iClicker Cloud showcase provided a quick product overview and examples of how instructors use iClicker before, during, and after class. More …
Ally – The Accessibility Tool
The Ally service in Bruin Learn checks for accessibility issues and generates alternative formats, guides instructors on how to improve their course content, and provides institutional-wide reporting on content accessibility. More …
Leganto – Course Reading List
The UCLA Library uses the Leganto platform to help faculty manage Course Reading List in Bruin Learn. Course reading lists allow UCLA instructors to incorporate up-to-date links to Library resources and easily compile other freely available online resources into their courses. More …
German 1 – Elementary German
This showcase demonstrates how Prof. Magdalena Tarnawska Senel successfully applied Universal Design for Learning principles in the course design and created several student “Action & Expression” activities in Bruin Learn. More …
Digital Humanities 101 – Introduction to Digital Humanities
Prof. Ashley Sanders covers a variety of digital tools and approaches to organize, explore, understand, present, and tell stories with data in her DH101 course. More …
Digital Humanities 150 – Pirates of the Mediterranean through Text Analysis
Prof. Ashley Sanders uses text analysis to study the fascinating history of Pirates of the Mediterranean in DH150. She also uses Leganto, the Library’s Course Reading List tool. More …
Liberating Structure: Scaffolding Digital Project Integration with Bruin Learn
Presenters shared the experience of course development and re-design that includes curated content collections, methods of inquiry, and digital project work, using an innovative curriculum template in Bruin Learn. More …
Sociology 1 – Introductory Sociology
Prof. Jessica Collet integrated various course design solutions in Sociology 1 to provide students with different types of interactions with course materials, lectures, and chances to communicate with peers. More …
Statistics 100A – Introduction to Probability
Prof. Juana Sanchez implemented various pedagogical strategies to increase communication opportunities and engage students in her Statistics 100A course. More …
