15 to 5 weeks: Right-Sizing an Undergraduate Educational Technology Course

Abstract

This design case describes the thought processes associated with redesigning an educational technology course for undergraduate preservice teachers from a 15-week hybrid course to a 5-week online course. The redesign is part of a push to create more flexible courses for working and rural students to remain competitive despite multiple alternative licensure paths now available to aspiring teachers. The designers face and overcome challenges regarding right-sizing the course content and assignments while maintaining student engagement. Additionally, the designers discuss how they streamlined the course without sacrificing standards or critical and relevant topics, like AI in education. The case details the development of the online course within the learning management system (LMS; Google Classroom) and the design questions that emerge during that process. The redesigned 5-week course was tested through two iterations in the 2023 summer semester: Summer 1 and Summer 2. The designers collected student feedback after both runs of the course using the standard course evaluation survey, their own Google Forms survey, and the instructor’s reflections. The feedback from Summer 1 informed the Summer 2 iteration. Finally, the designers observed that the experience of condensing the course from 15 weeks to 5 weeks required them to think critically about the course goals and how to make the content manageable for students. The redesign was so successful that the course instructor (also a design case author) determined to redesign the 15-week version of the course for Fall 2023 using the new 5-week design as an anchoring point.