by Rebecca Cottrell and Ann Obermann

The main consumers of our courses are students and yet we rarely include them in the course design process beyond student evaluations. Our session shares initial results from research exploring student perspectives of course design collaborations and creative ways to incorporate student voice into your design processes.

Rebecca Cottrell is the Online and Hybrid Course Development Analyst in the Social Work Department at Metropolitan State University of Denver. In this role, she works with faculty to develop online courses, and to incorporate inclusive pedagogy in online spaces. Her research interest is in inclusive, equitable online pedagogy, online instructor presence, and online course design, by incorporating design justice principles into online learning. Collaboration, relationship building, and accessibility are all key elements of Rebecca’s design and research process. Rebecca has presented nationally and published about online pedagogy and about incorporating student voice into the course design process.

Ann Obermann is an Associate Professor of Social Work and Online Education Coordinator at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Ann loves engaging with her students on topics such as digital ethics, social work in a digital world, change and technology, and looking at social problems through the lens of social media. Working in collaboration, Ann enjoys creating OER social work materials, writing 101 Careers in Social Work, building student course design collaboration models, honoring shared governance, and finding joy in higher education.