This year, our instructional design team partnered with faculty on several innovative projects through the Change 1Thing initiative! Talk to the Instructional Designers to discuss your class today!
We're excited to showcase some of the outstanding outcomes from these collaborations:
Sherri Cannon – BIOL 222 Microbiology
Microbiology Lab Safety
Instructional Designer – Dr. Catherine Rushton
This project involved the creation of multiple interactive games created in Storyline 360 to prepare undergraduate microbiology students for safe lab practices before their first in-person lab session. Framed as a mission-based adventure, students take on the role of undercover operatives tasked with securing the lab by identifying essential safety equipment in a 360° virtual reality scavenger hunt and spotting violations in realistic lab scenarios. The game combines storytelling, interactive images, knowledge checks, and gamified challenges to engage students while reinforcing critical safety protocols in an immersive, asynchronous learning environment.
Dr. Jeremiah Carter
The Art of Storytelling: American History through African American Autobiography
Instructional Designer – Andrew Pemberton
In the English department, ID Andrew Pemberton and Dr. Jeremiah Carter collaborated on multiple interactive maps of the US. Students could click on different locations to learn about significant African American autobiographers. Each point on the map revealed a historical portrait, short biography, and an excerpt from their work.
Dr. Annalaura Mancia – MSC 114 Marine Biology Lab
Shark Dissection Interactive
Instructional Designer – Dr. Catherine Rushton
This project involved the development of a comprehensive lab interactive guide for the dissection of the dogfish shark (*Squalus acanthias*) for multiple biology lab courses. The lab materials included detailed background information, dissection procedures, and anatomical descriptions to guide students through the exploration of both external and internal structures. Key systems examined included digestive, respiratory, circulatory, and urogenital systems, with emphasis on shark-specific adaptations such as internal fertilization and a cartilaginous skeleton. To enhance student engagement and understanding, hotspots with additional information were overlaid on high-resolution images of actual dissections, providing an interactive and visually guided learning experience.
Dr. Patrick Murphree
An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence – JU College of Law
Instructional Designer – Dr. John Pauls
The Opportunity:
“I envision two lessons taking place towards the end of the semester. There will be three main learning objectives: (1) to practice developing effective prompts during a generative AI session; (2) to employ effective techniques for verifying the output of a generative AI; and (3) to understand attorneys’ ethical obligations when prompting an AI and when verifying the AI’s output. I believe the assistance of Academic Technology will be most valuable to me in developing in-class activities for the first and second objectives. I would then be able to integrate the third into the activities developed.”
The Change:
Working with an instructional designer, this change involved the creation of a self-paced pre-learning module that provided insight into responsible AI use, prompting, and how these correlate to the legal profession. Insight and support as to how to structure the continued face-to-face session was also provided to structure the pre-learning and lesson objectives in a cohesive manner.
Dr. Leyla Pordeli
Healthcare Informatics Chatbot
Instructional Designer – Dr. John Pauls
The Opportunity:
“Incorporate a Chatbot and design AI-driven activities into the course.
As future nurse informatics specialists, students should have a basic knowledge of AI applications and prompt writing. I envision incorporating activities into the course to provide opportunities for students to learn and practice prompts engineering.”
The Change:
Working with an instructional designer, this change resulted in the design and development of a custom AI chatbot trained on course-specific content and topics, implemented alongside carefully structured conversations about AI and how AI informs healthcare informatics in 2025.
Jody Propst- NUR 348 Mental Health Psychiatric Nursing
Videbeck’s Anger Phases and Depression
Instructional Designer – Dr. John Pauls
The Opportunity:
“In this course there are numerous terms used to define and describe a person's mood, affect, behavior, etc. The students are expected to identify the symptoms with the correlated diagnosis. Primarily this is completed in written format. Providing the students a visual of these more complex terms will improve understanding and ability to apply knowledge correctly. Several specific concepts immediately come to mind such as phases of anger and appropriate interventions vs schizophrenia's comprehensive symptomology (waxy flexibility, catatonia, thought broadcasting, responding to hallucinations, etc). Providing the students with visual activities will further enhance their studies. I have attempted to utilize video clips found online, however this is extremely time consuming, and usually I am making something work.”
The Change:
Working with an instructional design, this course implemented two self-paced interactive learning opportunities focusing on Videbeck’s Anger Phases and a case study on depression. These modules included AI-avatars that presented the content and scenarios, information to review, and opportunities for students to demonstrate their analysis and understanding of the skills being presented.
Melissa Sefton – NUR 328 Child-Rearing Family Theory
Pediatric Ethical Decision Making – Ben’s Journey
Instructional Designer – Dr. Catherine Rushton
This project involved the creation of an interactive branching scenario game in Storyline 360 for undergraduate nursing students, designed to simulate ethical decision-making in pediatric care. Centered around a young patient named Ben, the game presents students with complex, real-world dilemmas such as pediatric consent for vaccination, refusal of life-saving treatment, and dietary noncompliance in diabetes management. Through multiple-choice decision points, consequences, and optional side quests to regain trust, students explore the ethical principles of beneficence, autonomy, non-maleficence, and moral resilience. The game aims to foster critical thinking, empathy, and ethical reasoning in a safe, engaging learning environment.
Dr. Irina Toteva
Review Designing a Research Experiment
Instructional Designer – Andrew Pemberton
In the Davis College of Business, Andrew and Dr. Irina Toteva collaborated with the video production studio to create a series of videos that used authentic case studies to demonstrate how to conduct an experiment. Students learned about the components of an experiment situated in a broader lesson on understanding consumer behavior.
Associate Dean Dana Tupa
Pedagogy of the Arts
Instructional Designer – Andrew Pemberton
Andrew Pemberton and Associate Dean Dana Tupa worked together to add an engaging, eLearning module to FA-552: Pedagogy of the Arts. A self-paced, interactive module was created that taught students to compare and contrast asynchronous and synchronous learning. The module was themed around Dean Tupa's own professional art portfolio, using photos of her art as backdrops for the slides.
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