In this episode of the Magellan Podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Lee Beaumont, Vice President of Enrollment and Marketing at Magellan, to introduce a powerful new service within our Lead Optimization portfolio: Magellan’s Lead Lifeline.

Lead Lifeline is designed to help institutions rescue lost leads, re-engage student inquiries, and move them back on course toward enrollment through timely follow-up and personalized outreach.

Learn more about Magellan's Lead Lifeline

In the episode, the group discusses:

• What is lead optimization?

• The key challenges colleges face and why do so many struggle with lead follow-up?

• Magellan's lead optimization is rapid, personalized, application-guided, marketing-aligned, scalable, and cost-efficient.

• Why does this matter?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, marketing and enrollment, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Show Credits

The podcast theme was written and recorded by Dr. Wayne Patton. The podcast was recorded by, produced and edited by Adam Ranck.

Kentucky State University (KSU) and Magellan Learning Solutions are proud to announce the release of a new podcast episode titled “Transforming an Institution: The Collaborative Journey of Kentucky State University and Magellan Learning Solutions.” The episode, recorded on the beautiful campus of Kentucky State University, chronicles a powerful and strategic partnership that is reshaping the future of online education at one of the nation’s most historic HBCUs.

This in-depth conversation features KSU’s President, Dr. Koffi C. Akakpo, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Michael D. Dailey, Vice Provost for Student Affairs, Dr. Stephanie Mayberry, and Director of Marketing & Public Relations Jessica Holman. They are joined by the leadership team from Magellan Learning Solutions, including Cofounder and CEO Dr. Wayne Patton, President and COO Aaron Traphagen, Chief Business Development Officer Jimmy Queen, Vice President of Marketing & Enrollment Dr. Lee Beaumont, and Associate Vice President for Online Education Mike Floyd.

• Read the press release (available soon)
• Learn More About KYSU Online Programs

In the episode, the group discusses:

• The vision behind KSU’s shift to prioritize online learning
• The role of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education in funding and supporting the initiative
• The services Magellan provided, from curriculum development to student support infrastructure
• Real-world data showing the early success of the partnership
• Lessons learned and a shared roadmap for future impact

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, marketing and enrollment, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Show Credits

The podcast theme was written and recorded by Dr. Wayne Patton. The podcast was recorded by Aaron Traphagen, and produced and edited by Adam Ranck.

Welcome back to The Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Students learn better when they engage with course materials as whole people—thinking, feeling, culturally rich individuals. In the online classroom in particular, though, achieving this sort of affective engagement can be challenging. Designing online curriculum to create affective engagement may take effort, but it pays dividends, not only in student learning outcomes but in multiple other areas. Affectively aware courses, for example, honor the diversity of experiences that students bring to the online classroom, and as that happens, students in the group as a whole have an opportunity to increase their cultural awareness, to learn ways to communicate with others who are not like them, and to self-reflect on their own positions and ideas.

For today’s podcast, which follows our white paper “Affective Learning in the Online Classroom,” we welcome Dr. Gena Southall, Associate Vice President for Online Education at Magellan, to discuss ways to create affective engagement online. Gena brings decades of experience as an educator, both residentially and online, and as an administrator within teacher education programs. Magellan Partner Emily Heady will join her in this conversation.

Read the White Paper on this topic by Dr. Emily W. Heady, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"Affective Learning in the Online Classroom"

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. What is affective learning? Is it just finding a way to make learning experiences more emotional?
2. One of the points we make in the white paper is that affective learning is good for inclusion and for welcoming all kinds of different learners into the process. How does this work, and why does it matter?
3. What are some practical ways we can create affectively engaged online learning experiences?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, marketing and enrollment, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Show Credits

Magellan Team in this podcast includes Dr. Emily W. Heady and Dr. Gena Southall. The podcast theme was written and recorded by Dr. Wayne Patton. Podcast recorded, produced, and edited by Adam Ranck.

Recommended Resources

• Doubet, K. (2022). The flexibly grouped classroom: How to Organize Learning for Equity and Growth. ASCD.

Welcome back to The Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

In today’s episode, the team interviews Dr. Jennifer Green, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Success at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, as a part of our “Managing Boundaries, Managing Change” Leadership Interview series. Jennifer oversees admissions, the registrar’s office, financial aid, first-year experience, student employment, and a variety of student support offices.

If there’s one constant in our educational environment, it’s change. Managing change provides a unique set of challenges for leaders, who have to understand what needs to be changed and plot out a course for how that change should occur. Change is particularly difficult because it touches something most of us hold near and dear—our comfortable lives. Join the Magellan team, and guest Jennifer Green, as they discuss ways in which leaders have navigated changes at their institutions in the past.

• Read the White Paper on this topic by Dr. Emily W. Heady: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Managing Boundaries, Managing Change

• Listen to Part 1 of our last podcast series: ⁠⁠How to Talk About Higher Education⁠⁠

• Listen to our podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Online Learning Ecosystems⁠⁠⁠⁠

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. Can you describe a change you either led or were part of that went well? What characterized it?
2. How about a change that proved challenging? What were the hard parts, and what can we learn from them?
3. As you look at the higher ed landscape now, what coming changes do you see that we’re going to need to be ready to tackle?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Show Credits

Magellan Team includes Dr. Wayne Patton, Aaron Traphagen, and Dr. Emily W. Heady. The podcast theme was written and recorded by Dr. Wayne Patton. Podcast produced and edited by Adam Ranck.

Colleges cannot escape the fact that they are businesses: they offer a “product” that they need to “sell” to consumers. Of course, education and students are not “products” and “consumers” in the same way that people shopping at the grocery store are! So what’s at stake in embracing or questioning the idea that higher education is a marketplace?

This is part 5 of a 5-part series on "How to Talk About Higher Education." Parts 1-4 covered Higher Ed as an "ecosystem," "culture," "machine," and "institution." This is the final episode of this series.

• Read the White Paper on this topic by Dr. Emily W. Heady, ⁠⁠⁠⁠"Talking about Leadership: How the Words We Use Shape Our Workplace."⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Listen to our podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Online Learning Ecosystems⁠⁠⁠⁠
• Listen to Part 1: ⁠⁠How to Talk About Higher Education⁠⁠
• Listen to Part 2: ⁠⁠Higher Education as a Culture⁠⁠
• Listen to Part 3: ⁠Higher Education as a Machine⁠
• Listen to Part 4: Higher Education as an Institution

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. In what ways is higher education a marketplace?

• Admissions/competitive degree programs
• Students are “voting with their feet” as they select what school brings the best experience, value, investment potential, etc.

2. What are the downsides of thinking of higher ed as a marketplace?

• Marketplaces assume that selves are defined by their relationships to commodities; if university education is a commodity, it can be used to define the self—which may be a bit ambitious.
• Once you’re in a branded world, it’s hard to get outside it—how do you truly represent what the student experience will be like? And how, once you’ve embraced branding, do you access the real things that education aims to tackle, like critical thinking, deep beliefs, etc.?
• What can a leader do to keep campuses from losing their moorings in the midst of the marketplace?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Recommended Articles and Books on this Topic:

• Bowles, K. (2022, March 28). A pocket primer: Types of higher education institutions. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-explain-it-me/pocket-primer-types-higher-education-institutions⁠⁠⁠⁠  Petriglieri, G. (2023, April 24). Driving organizational change—Without abandoning tradition. Harvard Business Review. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hbr.org/2023/04/driving-organizational-change-without-abandoning-tradition?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠  
• Rosowsky, D. & Hallman, K. (2020, May 25). Communicating culture in a distributed world. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/05/26/importance-culture-binding-higher-ed-institution-together-during-crises-pandemic⁠⁠⁠⁠  
• Rutter, M. & Mintz, S. (2019, January 17). Creating a more collaborative higher education ecosystem. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/creating-more-collaborative-higher-education-ecosystem⁠⁠⁠⁠  
• Schein, E., & Schein, P. (2016). Organization culture and leadership. 5th Ed. Wiley. 
• Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday. 

Language about the “institution” of higher education is unavoidable—so much so that individual campuses refer to themselves as such. But what does this mean? What’s at stake in a campus thinking of itself in these terms?

This is part 4 of a 5-part series on "How to Talk About Higher Education." Part 1-3 covered Higher Ed as an "ecosystem," "culture," and "machine." In the next and last episode, we will discuss Higher Education as a marketplace.

• Read the White Paper on this topic by Dr. Emily W. Heady, ⁠⁠⁠"Talking about Leadership: How the Words We Use Shape Our Workplace."⁠⁠⁠
• Listen to our podcast on ⁠⁠⁠Online Learning Ecosystems⁠⁠⁠
• Listen to Part 1: ⁠How to Talk About Higher Education⁠
• Listen to Part 2: ⁠Higher Education as a Culture⁠
• Listen to Part 3: Higher Education as a Machine

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. What are the implications of higher education being an “institution”?

• It’s one of society’s ways of reproducing its own values—institutions teach rules and help us all to follow them. They’re a key way we understand what’s right and wrong, acceptable and not.

2. Is higher ed in step or out of step with other social institutions, such as the government, churches, etc.?

3. What does a leader in an institutional culture need to do?

• Realize that they’re always imprinting somehow—sharing ideas, transmitting beliefs, making statements about what’s going to fly and what isn’t.

• They also need to move away from things like canceling, shaming, etc., as institutional culture is always based to some extent on fear of being outside the norm.

• Be careful with rewards and penalties; institutions work by rewarding compliance and punishing non-compliance.

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Recommended Articles and Books on this Topic:

• Bowles, K. (2022, March 28). A pocket primer: Types of higher education institutions. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠⁠⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-explain-it-me/pocket-primer-types-higher-education-institutions⁠⁠⁠  Petriglieri, G. (2023, April 24). Driving organizational change—Without abandoning tradition. Harvard Business Review. ⁠⁠⁠https://hbr.org/2023/04/driving-organizational-change-without-abandoning-tradition?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter⁠⁠⁠  
• Rosowsky, D. & Hallman, K. (2020, May 25). Communicating culture in a distributed world. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠⁠⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/05/26/importance-culture-binding-higher-ed-institution-together-during-crises-pandemic⁠⁠⁠  
• Rutter, M. & Mintz, S. (2019, January 17). Creating a more collaborative higher education ecosystem. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠⁠⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/creating-more-collaborative-higher-education-ecosystem⁠⁠⁠  
• Schein, E., & Schein, P. (2016). Organization culture and leadership. 5th Ed. Wiley. 
• Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday. 

No one likes to refer to higher education as a machine or a factory, though it is true that many major players in the higher ed sphere have a great number of machine-like processes in place. These help them to recruit and enroll students, identify students who may not retain, and increase efficiency in many areas of campus operations. What does it mean when a university embraces its machine-like qualities? Join us for a discussion.

This is part 3 of a 5-part series on "How to Talk About Higher Education." Part 1 & 2 covered Higher Ed as an "ecosystem" and "culture." In further episodes, we will discuss Higher Education as a an institution and a marketplace.

• Read the White Paper on this topic by Dr. Emily W. Heady, ⁠⁠"Talking about Leadership: How the Words We Use Shape Our Workplace."⁠⁠
• Listen to our podcast on ⁠⁠Online Learning Ecosystems⁠⁠
• Listen to Part 1: How to Talk About Higher Education
• Listen to Part 2: Higher Education as a Culture

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. What are some of the machine-like elements of higher education?

• Financial aid, IT, assessment, etc.

2. What are some of the gains and losses that a campus that embraces its mechanisms will face?

• Gains: efficiency, process, reliability, revenue
• Losses: potential for personal alienation, lack of nimbleness/responsiveness, tendency to maintain rather than envision.

3. What are the implications for leaders in higher ed machines?

• Make a space for vision/leadership—not just for management—and also evaluate the effects of the machinery on those working in the “Factory.”
• There needs to be a lot of reflection on goals, priorities, core values, etc., and not just as measurable outcomes.

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Recommended Articles and Books on this Topic:

• Bowles, K. (2022, March 28). A pocket primer: Types of higher education institutions. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-explain-it-me/pocket-primer-types-higher-education-institutions⁠⁠  Petriglieri, G. (2023, April 24). Driving organizational change—Without abandoning tradition. Harvard Business Review. ⁠⁠https://hbr.org/2023/04/driving-organizational-change-without-abandoning-tradition?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter⁠⁠  
• Rosowsky, D. & Hallman, K. (2020, May 25). Communicating culture in a distributed world. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/05/26/importance-culture-binding-higher-ed-institution-together-during-crises-pandemic⁠⁠  
• Rutter, M. & Mintz, S. (2019, January 17). Creating a more collaborative higher education ecosystem. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/creating-more-collaborative-higher-education-ecosystem⁠⁠  
• Schein, E., & Schein, P. (2016). Organization culture and leadership. 5th Ed. Wiley. 
• Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday. 

“Culture” may be understood as all the things people don’t think about but have internalized as part of “the way things are.” One of the roles higher education plays is in helping people to adapt to and hold a good understanding of culture—the campus, the discipline of study, and society more broadly. Join us as we discuss the implications of understanding higher education as a culture.

This is part 2 of a 5-part series on "How to Talk About Higher Education." Part 1 included an introduction and discussion on Higher Education as an "ecosystem." In further episodes, we will discuss Higher Education as a machine, an institution, and a marketplace.

• Read the White Paper on this topic by Dr. Emily W. Heady, ⁠"Talking about Leadership: How the Words We Use Shape Our Workplace."⁠
• Listen to our podcast on ⁠Online Learning Ecosystems⁠.
• Listen to Part 1 of this series: How to Talk About Higher Education.

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. When we talk about the “culture of higher ed,” what are some of the sorts of things we mean?

• Campus traditions, critical thinking, freedom of speech, unwritten rules, etc.—all communal practices that allow individuals to flourish.
• How does this look in an online environment versus a residential campus?

2. What are some ways we see the “higher ed as culture” discussion taking shape today?

• Canceling heterodox opinions
• The “culture” of transparency & faculty governance

3. What should a leader in a higher ed culture attend to?

• Attend to physical signs—symbols, markers, etc. Everything signifies something.
• “The way things are”—the tyranny of the current—needs to be both communicated and questioned; leaders must analyze culture rather than just reproducing it.

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Recommended Articles and Books on this Topic:

• Bowles, K. (2022, March 28). A pocket primer: Types of higher education institutions. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-explain-it-me/pocket-primer-types-higher-education-institutions⁠  Petriglieri, G. (2023, April 24). Driving organizational change—Without abandoning tradition. Harvard Business Review. ⁠https://hbr.org/2023/04/driving-organizational-change-without-abandoning-tradition?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter⁠  
• Rosowsky, D. & Hallman, K. (2020, May 25). Communicating culture in a distributed world. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/05/26/importance-culture-binding-higher-ed-institution-together-during-crises-pandemic⁠  
• Rutter, M. & Mintz, S. (2019, January 17). Creating a more collaborative higher education ecosystem. Inside Higher Ed. ⁠https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/creating-more-collaborative-higher-education-ecosystem⁠  
• Schein, E., & Schein, P. (2016). Organization culture and leadership. 5th Ed. Wiley. 
• Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday. 

If you listen to discussions about higher education, you’ll find a plethora of ways that people talk about it. Is it a workforce development machine? Is it a training ground for future leaders? Is it a place where people grow into fully-fledged human beings? The answer is “yes”—it’s all these. And the language we use to talk about higher education affects how we do it. Join us for a conversation about the many ways we talk about higher education.

This is part 1 of a 5-part series on "How to Talk About Higher Education," an introduction to the topic and a discussion on Higher Education as an "ecosystem." In further episodes, we will discuss Higher Education as a culture, a machine, an institution, and a marketplace.

• Read the White Paper on this topic by Dr. Emily W. Heady, "Talking about Leadership: How the Words We Use Shape Our Workplace."
• Listen to our podcast on Online Learning Ecosystems.

Podcast Topics and Show Notes:

1. Why do metaphors matter when we talk about higher ed? And what are some common ones that people use?

2. Let’s talk about one of these—the ecosystem. What’s at stake in referring to higher education as an ecosystem rather than as something else?

• Darwinian ideas—Survival of the fittest, etc.
• Systems with checks and balances, resource sharing, etc.

3. What can a leader within a higher ed ecosystem do?

• Guide resource allocation for systemic flourishing – define boundaries, manage territory, etc.
• Manage tension/conflict rather than stoking or joining it.

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Recommended Books:

• Bowles, K. (2022, March 28). A pocket primer: Types of higher education institutions. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-explain-it-me/pocket-primer-types-higher-education-institutions  Petriglieri, G. (2023, April 24). Driving organizational change—Without abandoning tradition. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2023/04/driving-organizational-change-without-abandoning-tradition?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter  
• Rosowsky, D. & Hallman, K. (2020, May 25). Communicating culture in a distributed world. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/05/26/importance-culture-binding-higher-ed-institution-together-during-crises-pandemic  
• Rutter, M. & Mintz, S. (2019, January 17). Creating a more collaborative higher education ecosystem. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/creating-more-collaborative-higher-education-ecosystem  
• Schein, E., & Schein, P. (2016). Organization culture and leadership. 5th Ed. Wiley. 
• Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday. 

Wytheville Community College has a thriving dual enrollment program that serves the needs of many students in southwest Virginia. When WCC lost its dual enrollment partner at the eleventh hour, Dean Susan Evans had to act fast. Through a partnership with Magellan, WCC was able to reinvigorate its dual enrollment program—and the partnership continues to this day. The Magellan partners are grateful to be able to welcome Dean Evans for a conversation about how a great vendor-institutional partnership can look.

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Podcast Topics and Show Notes:

1. What’s the backstory? What was the emergency, and how did WCC connect with Magellan?

2. What was the initial project?

• Helping WCC design 21 courses in 6 months
• Helping them define quality courses

3. Why does dual enrollment matter so much?

• It’s an important driver of college access, particularly in rural and underserved areas.
• It shores up the bottom line for many institutions, especially community colleges.

4. What’s next for WCC and Magellan?

In this episode, we are joined by Kathy Calvert, Director of Learning Design and Development at Magellan Learning Solutions. Through the dedicated work of the Learning Design team, we help our clients produce quality curriculum that facilitates learning in schools, business environments, and custom solutions. But what exactly is good curriculum and how do we help our clients create it? Join our conversation with Kathy and the Magellan partners, Wayne Patton, Aaron Traphagen, and Emily Heady, to learn a little more about how Magellan can help your students succeed.

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, your online ecosystem, curriculum, or course development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at thinkmagellan.com. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Podcast Topics and Show Notes:

1. What we do before we begin creating content. This includes planning the program/course, helping the SME’s vision flourish, setting goals and outcomes, and training in the LMS.

• Explaining the backward design model can be difficult for SMEs to grasp. They are not used to always planning their course this way. Helping them understand it is important to know where (outcomes) we are going before we figure out how we will get there.
• Invest in building a working relationship with the SME as early as possible. It is important to have mutual respect and trust for a smooth development. SMEs have different ways of writing or planning, and communicating. It is important to give and take on both sides to settle on what works for both.
• How will we assess or confirm we got where we intended to go? The assessment or assessments will show student attainment of the outcomes.

2. The work we do during the building process. What makes a quality online course? Alignments, types of content, pacing and time on task, ADA, RSI, and more. These are all things our Magellan team helps to develop and knows to look for.

• It is important to keep directing the SME back to the outcomes we are trying to help the student attain and show attainment of.
• A good course will map every item added to the course, and it will either teach or assess a CLO.
• Building in the accessibility pieces is important. With a good solid template, building a course that meets the criteria is easy.
• Another important element is building a consistent course design across all courses. This is also where a template comes in.

3. What barriers can impede the successful development of an online program/course? How can an institution proactively plan to avoid getting “stuck” in the common pitfalls that we often see during development?

• A lack of clear, observable, and measurable Program, Course, and Module Learning Outcomes can make course development very difficult.
• It is important on a project to have the plan and expectations that Magellan, or other companies, brings to the table communicated and confirmed by the administration. Lack of administrative communication leads to many additional conversations in order to clearly communicate the objectives and standards to create quality courses.
• Being an ID is like dancing with a partner. An ID works to show respect to the SME for their knowledge, vision, and dreams for a course, while guiding the course-building process to use best practices and established standards. Sometimes the SME leads, and sometimes the ID leads.
• Regular communication is key. ID to SME and SME to ID. If an SME is stuck, they need to let their ID know, so an ID can help them clear a path where it may not be clear. In both cases, the 2 must learn how best to talk about their work and issues to create the best quality content.

For this special client spotlight episode on the Magellan Podcast, we wanted to introduce you to one of our clients, Reverend Dr. Debra Lynn Haggins. We've been privileged to support Rev. Dr. Haggins' project, the D'ART Collective, an exciting, innovative collection of 6 online courses, Pathways, designed to help Christians, pastors, and church leaders strengthen their ministries and impact their community and culture.

Reverend Dr. Debra Lynn Haggins is the founder of The D'ART Collective, university chaplain and pastor of the historic Memorial Church at Hampton University, and the executive director of the nationally acclaimed Hampton University Ministers’ Conference-Choir Directors’ & Organists’ Guild Workshop.

Learn more about:

• The D'ART Collective
• Lilly Endowment Inc.
• Hampton University
• Hampton University Ministers' Conference

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, your online ecosystem, curriculum, or course development, think Magellan, our team would love to help. Reach out to us at thinkmagellan.com. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Topics discussed:

1. Who is Reverend Dr. Debra Lynn Haggins?
2. What is Lilly Endowment Inc., and how did Debra get interested in working with them?
3. What is The D’ART Collective? How did Debra conceptualize it, and how did she find Magellan?
4. What has the process of working together on this been like?
5. Where can people find information on The D’ART Collective? Who should check it out?
6. What is next? What are Debra’s new projects and new visions?

We've spent a lot of time talking about the theory of cognitive load and some ways we might apply it in our classrooms. Instructional designers can be instrumental in helping instructors to think through the ways their courses create and distribute cognitive load.

Join the Magellan partners, and special guest, Dr. Chris Davis, Assistant Director of Learning Design and Development at Magellan, as they discuss how instructional designers can help with cognitive load issues.

This podcast is three of three discussions from Part 2 of Cognitive Load.

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, your online ecosystem, curriculum, or course development, think Magellan, our team would love to help. Reach out to us at thinkmagellan.com. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Topics discussed:

1. How Can Instructional Designers Help with Cognitive Load Issues?
2. Assuring a good mix of modalities
3. Chunking learning appropriately
4. Assisting with schema-related scaffolding

If you're like most people, you've probably learned some piece of information and then, as soon as it didn't seem useful anymore, promptly forgot it. It takes a lot of effort to move knowledge from short-term memory to longer-term memory, where you can call on it over and over again. Today's conversation about germane load will give us tips for helping students do this more effectively.

This podcast is two of three discussions from Part 2 of Cognitive Load.

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, your online ecosystem, curriculum, or course development, think Magellan, our team would love to help. Reach out to us at thinkmagellan.com. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Topics discussed:

1. What is germane load, and how can we design for it?
2. What it means to design good assignments (not Google-able, not AI-produced).
3. Keeping what we teach relevant to students’ own lives and helping them jump quickly to application and to areas where they are already emotionally and personally interested.

Did you ever have a student who was able to memorize everything you said but couldn't quite understand how it all fit together? Have you ever found yourself fielding questions about what the point of an assignment is? If so, you might want to spend a little time pondering SCHEMAS with us—one of the key components of cognitive load that can help us move students from simply memorizing material to understanding and using it properly.

This podcast is one of three discussions from Part 2 of Cognitive Load.

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, your online ecosystem, curriculum, or course development, think Magellan, our team would love to help. Reach out to us at thinkmagellan.com. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Topics discussed:

1. What are schemas, and why do they matter?
2. Designing to show connections among outcomes and objectives, assignments, and larger goals clearly.
3. Scaffolding learning – going step-by-step.

Cognitive load has been a major topic of conversation among psychologists and educators for the past few decades. Thanks to research in this area, we now have the capacity to design activities and curriculum in a way that helps students to use their mental space effectively for learning new material. But this concept goes beyond what’s happening in the learning space alone and touches all aspects of a student’s educational experience. Join the Magellan partners and guest, Dr. Pat Neely, Executive Vice President for Online & Distance Education from Bluefield University, as they discuss cognitive load.

If you enjoyed the podcast today or found it helpful, follow us on iTunes, Spotify, or where you listen to podcasts and listen to our earlier episodes on RSI and Online Learning ecosystems. Leave a review to let us know what you think. If you or your school is looking for help with your online ecosystems, RSI, consulting, or course development, our team would love to help. Reach out to us at thinkmagellan.com. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Questions discussed:

1. What is cognitive load, and how can it help us to understand how students learn?
2. What are some practical ways we can apply cognitive load theory in the learning space?  [5 effects]
3. Besides the material in the course, what are some places where cognitive load shows up for students? [SES, beliefs/prejudices, motivations/desires, pre-existing learning habits, technology]
4. Besides designing courses well and trying to help students manage their own attention, what are some practical things that universities can do to reduce students’ cognitive load? [clean up terminology/nomenclature, address accessibility, communicate strategically across campus, address socioeconomic realities explicitly, facilitate interpersonal supports systems]
5. How can understanding cognitive load help us to be smarter about the effects of the pandemic and the political environment in which students are now learning?

What is an Online Learning Ecosystem? Online Learning, especially at the higher education level, requires more than just courses and instructors. It requires courses to be designed intentionally and the instructors to be trained specifically for the online environment. Additionally, the entire online student journey from inquiry to graduation requires an interconnected student-focused network made up of people, policies, and processes that undergird every aspect of the educational experience. All of these factors are necessary for a successful online program, whether large or small. Join the Magellan Learning Solution partners Wayne Patton, Aaron Traphagen, and Emily Heady as they discuss the key components of an online learning ecosystem.

If you enjoyed the podcast today or found it helpful, follow us on iTunes, Spotify or where you listen to podcasts, and leave a review to let us know what you think. Come back in November where we will talk about cognitive load. If you or your school is looking for help with your online ecosystems, RSI, consulting, or course development, our team would love to help. Reach out to us at thinkmagellan.com/contact.

Our first episode grapples with the Department of Education’s new standards for online learning, RSI, or Regular and Substantive Interaction. Many institutions are asking: what does RSI mean, and how might our online division seek to meet its stipulations?

Join the Magellan Partners and guest Terri Milroy, Coordinator of Education Technologies at Southside Virginia Community College, for a conversation.

An overview of the questions we will tackle:

1. The Magellan Team has been working in the online space for a long time, and we've seen online learning go from the Wild West to, in some cases, a beautifully organized, well-run educational machine. But in some places, it’s still the Wild West. So—given that background—can we put RSI in context? Where did the need for it come from, and why do we suddenly see this federal regulation?
2. What specifically does this RSI regulation require?
3. Doing RSI related things in individual courses is a good practice—but of course, institutions are going to have to show system-wide compliance. This will tie to creating standards, training to those standards, and verifying those standards are being met. How do you bring about the sort of culture shift that you need to accomplish that?
4. One of the big concerns that is often articulated about higher education has to do with its value—is a degree worth what people pay for it, will people really learn enough that the time and effort they spend is worthwhile, etc.? How does RSI play into this conversation?

We hope the conversation is edifying and helpful. Please feel free to reach out to us at thinkmagellan.com/contact.