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Executive Summary

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The Enhanced Digital Learning Initiative (EDLI) is a collaboration of educators in the Colleges of Arts and Letters, Business and Natural Science, MSU Libraries, and MSU IT. Our mission is to humanize the digital learning experience and use a values-driven approach to develop and evaluate digital pedagogies and technologies for 21st-century learning. 

EDLI’s efforts are at the intersection of pedagogy, technology, and content knowledge. In working in that space, EDLI brokers relationships between students, faculty, and administration. This empowers EDLI to do applied work, conducting Research, Evaluation, and Implementation guidance for educational technology and tech-infused pedagogy.

This report gives an overview of the first two years of work that EDLI has conducted. We have structured this executive summary into three sections based on time; Leveling Ground (Year 1), Building Structures (Year 2), and looking ahead with our current and future work (Years 3+)

Leveling Ground (Year 1)

Our first year of work was spent evaluating existing resources, developing new collaborations, and identifying areas of need. Once identified, we were able to expand our team into areas of need, thus strengthening our work and vision.

• EDLI’s work connected with more than 8,300 enrollments across the campus, 
• We designed and offered PD for more than 1,500 faculty and staff. 
• Notable projects during that first year include
  • Course mapping and redesign of the MTH 101 course objectives, 
  • Paper Models for Dissection
  • Mid- Semester Course Evaluation process that was trialed in all three colleges
  • Worked with MSU IT to support a campus-wide version of PackBack, proofing a concept of stakeholder-based identification and rollout of educational technologies
  • Led a group to strategically identify rooms for HyFlex equipment 

In addition to our work with faculty and students, the team spent time analyzing our resource needs and the needs of our three Colleges through conversations with administration and faculty. We realized further building out the EDLI team would maximize our strengths and opportunities and developed concrete steps to grow and solidify the EDLI team. 

• Posted and hired joint-appointed FTE between CAL and Nat Sci
  • Focused on grant-making and project management
• Posted and hired joint-appointed FTE between Nat Sci and Broad
  • Focused on psychometrics and evaluation
• Deepened ties with MSU IT
  • Collaborated weekly with the Director of Academic Technology
• Developed website to facilitate reporting and communication
• Identified initial high-impact projects
  • Multimodal Teaching Models/HyFlex
  • Software Evaluation and Pathways

Building Structures (Year 2)

The second year was focused on building the structures for success in the areas of Research, Evaluation, and Implementation. We continued expanded work on our focal areas from Year 1, ensuring that we followed through on all components of the REI model, while also engaging further in identifying and engaging with areas of need on campus.

• In research, we created a grant strategy and immediately started to seek grants to support work that we were already doing as well as areas we saw the need for on campus. 
  • Submitted five grant proposals for a potential $1 million in funding
  • Submitted NSF DEI

• Multimodal/HyFlex Teaching Models was a core research area for the year
  • Worked with 8 instructors across multiple courses in CAL, CNS, and Broad, impacting 1,200 undergraduates
  • Developed Multimodal Instructor Guide
• Constructed and proofed EDLI Logic Model to guide evaluation and implementation work on our projects
• Continued work on course-level evaluation, fine-tuning our mid-semester review process
• Continued software evaluation processes with Credly, Playposit, and PackBack
• Developed a learning design strategy to guide course development work that is connected to the pillars and designed with student-centeredness in mind.
• Sarah Wellman achieved certification from QM for course review coordinator, allowing us to build out our capacity for doing quality evaluations and reviews 
• Collaborated with MSU IT, APUE, and MSU Libraries to implement a laptop loan program for students in short-term need of technology assistance.
• Developed, in collaboration with MSU IT, CUED, and APUE, an updated student computing recommendation and presented for approval at UCUE.
• Identified next areas of 
  • Augmented/Virtual Reality 
  • Course Mapping 
  • Microcredentialing 
  • Student Success in Large, Introductory Courses
    

REI in Action (Year 3)

As we enter year three we have been working closely with our campus collaborators to identify topical areas of focus that are driven by campus needs/opportunities and in line with our mission, vision, and values. We continue to approach our work of identifying research-based solutions for needs within our units that can be shared across disciplines and implemented more broadly.

Major focus areas for the year include 

• Critically examining emerging areas such as 
  • augmented and virtual reality in the classroom, 
  • facilitating digital teaching communities.
  • non-traditional assessment practices
  • core needs such as course mapping/objectives
  • examining new approaches to experiential learning
• Continuing to understand and support multimodal teaching and learning models, including hyflex, hybrid, and other emerging pedagogical approaches, 
• Building and solidifying further collaborative relationships with campus partners

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