CTLD Instructional Design Media Showcase

Last updated on May 22, 2024

By Tim Wright, Nate Easly III, Todd Wolfe, and Alex McDaniel

Have you ever noticed the opportunities for growth when students encounter new concepts in traditional classroom settings? Or their eagerness for more interactive learning experiences during lectures? The Instructional  Design Media team in the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Design (CTLD) understands these moments of potential. That’s why they actively collaborate with faculty members across MSU Denver to craft impactful instructional multimedia. 

CTLD’s Instructional Design Media team’s goal is clear and crucial: to help faculty members elevate learning experiences through multimedia resources that engage, enlighten, and empower. By embracing principles such as Richard Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning and upholding rigorous accessibility standards, this collaborative process ensures that MSU Denver students have access to top-of-the-line digital content that enriches their education.

Video Spotlight

Working with Subject Matter Experts

Throughout a development cycle, which typically spans a semester, faculty members engage in a dynamic partnership with CTLD Instructional Media Design Specialists and Instructional Designers. Together, they collaborate to craft engaging and effective instructional materials.

In the state-of-the-art CTLD Instructional Media Design studios, faculty members bring their educational vision to life through various multimedia formats. The possibilities are endless, from delivering captivating lectures to demonstrating complex concepts and conducting insightful interviews. The studios provide a professional environment with cutting-edge technology and resources to ensure the highest quality recordings.

The CTLD Media Studios

Moreover, the CTLD Instructional Media Design team can accommodate on-location recordings for projects requiring a more immersive setting. Whether it’s capturing field demonstrations, conducting interviews in unique settings, or showcasing real-world applications of course concepts, the team supports faculty members every step of the way.

These collaborative efforts culminate in the creation of instructional materials that are not only visually engaging but also pedagogically sound. By leveraging the expertise of CTLD Instructional Media Design Specialists and Instructional Designers, faculty members can deliver dynamic and impactful learning experiences to their students.

Instructional Media Stats

In the last two development cycles, the CTLD Instructional Media Design team has achieved remarkable productivity, generating 1,097 media objects across various formats, including lectures, interviews, module overviews, and instructor introductions. These materials, curated for 47 courses, average approximately 2.5 hours of media per course. In essence, this cumulative output amounts to an impressive equivalent of over 109 feature-length films, highlighting the team’s dedication and proficiency in delivering comprehensive multimedia resources to support the educational endeavors of its faculty member partners.

Montage

You can view a video montage below with various clips the CTLD Instructional Media Design has recorded over the past few cycles. This compilation showcases the team’s versatility in different recording techniques and settings. From green screen work to on-location demonstrations, the montage offers a glimpse into the diverse range of content produced. You’ll see overhead shots captured in the studio, providing insights into the team’s meticulous approach to production. Additionally, the video highlights the use of the lightboard for real-time lectures and multi-camera setups for enhanced visual storytelling. Through this montage, viewers can appreciate the team’s dedication to creating engaging and informative multimedia content for educational purposes.

Recent Projects

In the fall of 2023, the CTLD Instructional Design Media team introduced an innovative approach to multimedia learning by integrating scenario-based methodologies into three courses: “How to Change the World,” “Instructional Design Thinking,” and ​​”Fundamentals of Oral Communication.” This strategy aimed to immerse students in story-driven content, fostering experiential learning and shifting the focus from traditional scoring to practical engagement.

In “How to Change the World,” students interacted with Harmony, a character from a dystopian future, through video broadcasts aided by LR50, a robotic guide. Utilizing advanced tools like Midjourney and Twine, our instructional media team crafted immersive visuals and interactive narratives, enhancing the learning experience.

You can read more about this innovative course in the article How to Change the World Course Showcase.

Similarly, in “Instructional Design Thinking,” students assumed the role of project managers within a fictional company, McDaniel Corp., navigating complex challenges and receiving real-time feedback from characters like Alex and Earl McDaniel. Through Twine’s interactive features and CSS stylization, we created engaging digital communications that mirrored real-world scenarios.

You can read more about this innovative course in the Foundations of Instructional Design Course Showcase article.

Lastly, in “Fundamentals of Oral Communication”, Eric James and Elisa Varela served as models for still images for a fictional company, Roadrunner Consulting. The photos captured them in various expressive poses like excitement and contemplation. The characters were then given speech bubbles with text responses to convey feedback and explanations. This innovative approach to student engagement, a first for CTLD course development, introduced a more creative method for providing feedback. Additionally, the course featured high-quality video content produced by previous instructors, which was cleverly integrated as files for students, acting as interns, to discover and explore throughout the course.

These initiatives exemplify our commitment to leveraging cutting-edge multimedia tools and narrative learning to elevate educational experiences. By blending technology with storytelling, we create dynamic learning environments that foster deep understanding and prepare students for future success.

What Faculty Members Are Saying

Central to our endeavors is a strong collaboration with subject matter experts who work with us to realize their educational goals. Here’s a glimpse into their perspectives on our collaborative journey:

Eric James, Ph.D., Chair of Communication Studies

…It’s been a great opportunity to find some unique ways to make a new spin on some old topics and create some really creative content with the CTLD Media Team.

…When I come into CTLD, it’s a collaboration. I get to explore what options are out there, what might be possible for my classes, things I really haven’t even imagined before.

Working with the CTLD team and developing classes through CTLD has affected the way that I challenge myself in the classroom [and] the way I find myself in the classroom as well.

Alycia Palmer, Ph.D., Analytical & Physical Chemistry Laboratory Supervisor

The way that working with media developers has affected the way that I teach is by bringing a lot of my instruction outside of my classroom to help my students feel more confident when they actually get into the lab.

My new media content has really brought the instruction before the lab so that they understand the fundamental principles of the experiment before they get there.

…Working with the CTLD media developers, we were able to do so much more. I was able to do different recording styles, or I could do writing on a board, capturing that. I could do a green screen behind me so I could show my slides and have me presenting at the camera at the same time. So it opened up a lot more options that I didn’t have doing this on my own.

Matthew S. Makley, Ph.D., Chair of History

Students who are engaging in these courses – they want to see that the University has invested in this infrastructure to allow a course to reach its fullest potential. So the feedback I have received has been positive…people are appreciative and I think it is a benefit to our students and therefore our enterprise.

​​Once I was able to really listen and learn from people who do this for a living, who think about course development and media day in and day out, I realized that there are such valuable resources here on our campus in the form of human knowledge and understanding which we can avail ourselves of.

…We can have students reading this article by an anthropologist. And then we can also pull in media, which is rich in photographs or video footage, maps, and invite the students into a three-dimensional world rather than keep them in the two dimensional…

Sam Jay, Ph.D., Director of Faculty Affairs

…I had an amazing experience working with that team. They were able to really walk me through how to best convey much of the content that was in that course and how to supplement that content with some really engaging video and media artifacts…

…I can’t thank them enough for what they have done, not just for me, [but] for our department. We continually lean on the CTLD media development team to help us enrich our courses.

I continue to work with the CTLD team and with the media developers. And there’s just a level of expertise for those folks who are behind the camera or behind the computer doing the editing that it is hard to really understand and convey unless you engage and actually collaborate with them on many of these projects. And so as a whole, it’s one of the more underutilized but impressive teams on this campus.

Sarah Schliemann, Ph.D., Lecturer, Environmental Science

The team is really supportive and patient [and] I also got some really good tips from [them] to make my presentations even better!

The videos are really fantastic. They look professional [and] have amazing sound and video quality. My previous videos I made with YuJa, and they certainly weren’t at the same level.

What I was able to do with my videos is use the green screen, which allowed me to explain complicated topics and diagrams by pointing at specific locations on my slides. And this really helped me teach the material in a more effective manner.

It’s just been a very positive experience. So don’t let that hesitation that you might have stop you from making some really amazing media for your class.

Dr. Annjanette Alejano-Steele, Professor, Public Health Program Department of Health Professions, and Research Director, Co-Founder of the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking

[The CTLD Media Developers] are so motivating, creative, and are amazing listeners.

When you sit in trying to create ways to put together interactive and appealing modules, they are right there, right by your side, to really look and listen to the content.

I got to work with the team on an interactive simulation….We really walked through ways for students to interact with the content [through] different situations [and] that was one of the most creative projects of really bringing the content to life.

Moving Forward

The CTLD Instructional Media Design is driven by a steadfast commitment to enhancing educational experiences through innovative multimedia resources. They understand the challenges educators and learners face and are dedicated to addressing them head-on through collaboration, creativity, and cutting-edge multimedia technology.

By partnering closely with faculty members and other subject matter experts, they ensure that their multimedia resources are academically rigorous but also engaging and inspiring. Their invaluable insights and feedback shape and enrich students’ learning experiences across disciplines.

As they move forward, their commitment to excellence remains unwavering. They will continue collaborating, innovating, and evolving, guided by their mission to empower learners and educators.

Partnering for Continuous Improvement in Teaching and Learning

A significant factor in the success of this and similar projects is the support and funding from the Office of Online Learning (OOL), which has been instrumental in enhancing the quality of our online educational endeavors. OOL’s support and contributions have empowered faculty members to innovate and create a more enriching educational environment for all. Please visit the Office of Online Learning for more information about all that they are doing to help MSU Denver faculty members and students.

Excited to Create Media?

Are you interested in enhancing your teaching methods and engaging your students more effectively? Consider joining the CTLD Development Cycle, where you’ll collaborate with our Instructional Media Design team to create high-quality multimedia resources. With personalized support, you’ll produce visually compelling instructional materials that can significantly impact your students’ learning experiences. If you’re ready to explore new ways of teaching, apply now and see how multimedia can transform your classroom.

For more information on the CTLD Development Cycle and how to apply to join, please read our CTLD Course Development Cycle spotlight.