From Flipped Frameworks To AI-Assisted Course Design

What happens when an instructional designer combines deep learning theory with AI-powered tools to rethink hybrid and flipped course design? In this episode, we dive into a real projects at NC State that helped instructors reimagine their courses not just with templates, but with thoughtful structure, smart prompts, and meaningful support.

We’ll explore:

• A fresh design approach grounded in what helps students actually learn
• How AI (like ChatGPT) was used to guide, not replace instructor creativity
• Challenges and wins from working with instructors across disciplines
• And how you can use the same free bots designed during this project to jump-start your own course redesign

If you’ve ever felt stuck adapting your course for hybrid or flipped delivery, or you’re curious about AI’s role in teaching, this episode offers a grounded, practical look at what’s working and what’s possible. 

Be sure to check out some of the resources mentioned in this episode: 

• Yan's Course Design AI Bots 
• Yan's Published Article: Integrating cognition, self-regulation, motivation, and metacognition: a framework of post-pandemic flipped classroom design

Be sure to stay on the lookout for the application period for DELTA grants programs: https://grants.delta.ncsu.edu/hybrid-learning-grants/

Transcript

Flipped Framework Origins and Principles

Host 0:30

Hello everyone and welcome back. Today I have with me Yan Chen. She's a senior instructional designer here at Delta. She works with faculty and the educational media team to design, develop, and evaluate technology-supported learning environments for online, face-to-face, and hybrid courses. Yan is interested in hybrid and flipped learning design and using technology-enhanced scaffolds to develop students' higher order thinking and problem-solving skills. Yan is also interested in evaluating the effects of technology-supported course design and instructional interventions on student learning processes and outcomes. Before joining Delta, she received her PhD in learning design and technology from the University of Georgia. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we're going to be talking all about the hybrid learning grants as well as how AI can be used to help with some of that work. And we're so excited to talk about for one, all the work that you're doing. I think that it's hard to see kind of what's going on behind the scenes sometimes. So I know you've mentioned that you've been working on a framework for the hybrid learning grant. Can you talk a little bit about what that is and how that kind of came about?

Why Self-Regulation Matters

Yan 1:44

Yeah, we recently published an article about the flipped classroom design framework. We actually have been working on this for quite a long time, way before COVID. I think it was like close to the beginning when I started working on hybrid flipped course design projects. I've always been trying to apply those design principles, design strategies from the academic world to my projects because many of those works have a solid educational psychology background and that is my interest area from my doctoral training. So I've always tried to apply those. So early on, I have been looking for like ways of how to apply, especially like Dr. Mario's first principles of instruction, like how to apply that within the process of flipped classroom learning. And I know there is research already out there from many years ago. People have been trying to apply those design principles. So I slowly kind of applied, he has five major principles. The key is problem-centered learning. And I think that aligns really well with flipped classroom hyperlearning because all we want to support, the end result is support more active learning to encourage students, engage students in problem-solving, critical creative thinking. That's what we want. And I think that goal matches well with his framework. And aside from that, he kind of looks at a whole learning process from a cognitive perspective, from like how do you activate students what they already know, and kind of get them ready for learning the new stuff. Activation is one another principle. And then there's another one called demonstration. Show students how you would solve a problem with the knowledge that they are, knowledge and skills that they are learning. And then after that, application. And that I think that's exactly what we want to use the class time for is to provide more application opportunities for students. And then the last one is integration, like put together everything you have learned. Now you're ready to do something more independently by solving new problems or sharing with others what you have learned. Even let other people critique what you have done, and you defend your like your ideas. And that kind of helps the students really adjust their mental model with the newly learned knowledge and skills. So I really believe in those design principles. That's what I've been trying to use in the flip classroom design process. And I know that's one area of strategy, another one area of theories that's supporting my framework. And the other areas include self-regulated learning and modeling. Because self-regulated learning is oftentimes overlooked in a lot of course design because it's not content-specific, it's unrelated to content. It's more like good learning strategies the students should be using to make their learning more efficient, effective. But because it's unrelated to the content, it's oftentimes overlooked by instructors and students.

Host 5:14

But I guess it's like what like really important when it comes to hybrid learning.

Yan 5:20

It's really important. There is research, a lot of research in the flip classroom area showing that students who tend to excel in those flip classroom learning environments are usually students who have good self-regulation skills. And if you provide those self-regulated learning support, that's going to help students do better in those learning environments. Like they really need to know how to manage their learning well to be successful. Because if you're not doing any of the online work before coming to class, you can get very little out of the in-class activity.

Host 5:55

Yeah.

Yan 5:55

And that's like what a lot of complaints from students come from, because they feel like, oh, I'm not learning anything. Like, why is my teacher not teaching me?

Motivation And Goals Link To Design

Host 6:06

Right. Which is such a weird concept. I feel like that's something that's happened, especially when we start talking about active learning. We start talking about more engaged learning, we start talking about like peer-to-peer learning. And the students' main questions always like, I came here so my instructor can teach me.

Yan 6:23

 Teach me.

Host 6:23

Yes.

Yan 6:23

It's a mindset. Like that's a mindset change about like I want to learn versus I want to be taught.

Host 6:33

Right, right. That's so true.

Yan 6:34

So self-regulated learning support and also the motivation theories kind of guide a student to what okay, what are your goals? What are your short-term goals like that you want to get out of this class? What are your long-term goals of what who you want to be in the future? And how that ties back to what you are currently doing in this class. If they see that connection between what they are doing right now and where they want to be, the goals they want to achieve, they are likely to be more motivated. And when they are motivated, and with those self-regulated learning support, they're more likely to be, I would say, like more intentional in planning out what they are doing on a weekly basis, even on a daily basis.

Host 7:21

 Yeah.

Yan 7:21

So like having motivational support, self-regulatory support, and cognitive support, like all those three pieces are critical for designing an effective hybrid flipped learning course. But like oftentimes, instructors have no idea, don't have as much because they are not trained in the educational field.

Host 7:44

Right.

Yan 7:59

Things they are probably not aware of. Like things that need to be considered and that's where my role comes in. Like I try to pull together all those different areas that the instructor needs to pay attention to when designing their flipped classroom.

The Designer’s Role And Grants

Host 7:59

And you just have background in all of that, you know. Like I think that's I think that's what I was gonna say too. You literally hit the nail on the head when you were saying instructors don't have all of this background all the time. And honestly, if it's not something that's a part of their work, it's maybe hard for them to gain all of that knowledge. So that is like it makes your role very important and very helpful, especially with the grants they can apply to get these grants, and then they have that support to be able to do something like this. So yeah, I think that's one of the biggest points is of having all that knowledge and applying it correctly.

Yan 8:39

Yeah, and that's what the value that we as instructional designers bring to the table, because this is a whole discipline. Instructional design,

Host 8:48

 Yeah.

Yan 8:48

educational psychology, those are huge disciplines in the field of education. So we come with that knowledge, and it is our role to kind of communicate, collaborate with instructors on integrating our knowledge with their content knowledge to design courses that are effective.

Host 9:10

And it is truly just such important work. Honestly, if you have time to check out some of those grants, I definitely would because they are fantastic. And you all usually do a yearbook where you'll show all the grants that have in the past year to get to see all the cool things. I think one of the things I was most surprised about when we first talked was how long you have been working on what we get to see today. And so I'm really interested to talk about what you've learned and what you've gained from your work. And we talked a little bit about this, but why do you feel like it's relevant right now to instructors and students across our university?

Pre-COVID To Pandemic Stress Test

Yan 9:52

Yeah, that's a great question. The whole design development of the design framework, the hyper learning program, it dated back to, I would say, at least seven or eight years ago before the pandemic, and when I was trying to apply those pedagogical theories. I usually work on about three to four courses each year in the past. Gradually, as I applied the same design framework to more and more courses, it makes my framework more robust. Yeah. Because I get to see like different courses have different learning contexts, different projects, different types of knowledge and skills. The more I apply, the more comprehensive, I would say, like generic. It makes my design strategies more well-rounded and can be applied to different contexts.

Host 10:38

Yeah.

Yan 10:39

And as I was doing more and more applications, I think that's about the time after a few years, like that's when COVID started. And then all of a sudden there was a spike in the number of courses that needed this type of redesign.

Host 10:55

That's what I was wondering, like if it would increase during that year.

Yan 10:59

I think in the year of 2020, I was normally I work with like three to four courses, and that year I had a lot more courses. And there was like one project from the physics department. They had four courses, came in as one grant, and they all did the same type of design. So that also gave me a good opportunity to see like how this can be applied to their discipline with like multiple courses. And at the same time, what really makes me feel confident about this design is that instructors who just finished their design and were rolling out the redesign course in the spring semester of that, like the semester when when we were hit by COVID, because they had to switch to online all of a sudden from online. And almost all of them say like it was a smooth transition for them.

Host 11:55

Oh wow.

Yan 11:56

And this is usually the opposite of what we hear from instructors.

Host 12:01

Right.

Smooth Shift To Online

Post-Pandemic Adoption And AI

Yan 12:01

It was like they told me it was a smooth transition because all they have to switch is to like change the in-class communication to an online environment. Luckily, we had Zoom at the time, so they were able to do almost all the in-class activities, it's just like synchronously online. But the whole core class structure stay the same. Like it was not a brutal, drastic change for them. And we had the same feedback from students as well. Like, students commented that they appreciate like the structure stay the same. And if you like compared to the other courses, this is like so easy for them to transition from the face-to-face to online. So that was really good, good thing to hear for me. And then at the same time, like as I was working, because there are more courses needing this type of redesign, I had an opportunity to work with more instructors using this approach. So again, like it kind of helped me gradually refine my design strategies. I've been working on the writing of my framework like before the pandemic, but during the pandemic and even after that, like I did numerous revisions to my writing. I don't remember how many times I revised, but anytime I revised, I was able to add more specific recommendations with examples from my projects to support those strategies. So by the time I finished the whole framework and then submitted for publication, I had a total of 10 courses that are used as examples, supporting those design strategies that we have. I feel like that is a good documentation of what we have done and what that means for the field, for instructors who are interested in using this approach. Especially nowadays, we are post-pandemic, but we are not the same from before the pandemic because nowadays most instructors' students have had that online learning experience. Whether it's good or bad, they have had that experience. It's not like instructors haven't touched that area at all. So we are at, I feel like that is a boosted effect that now we have that experience. And many instructors, I would say at least at NC state, and I think I'm hearing the same thing when I go to conferences. Instructors are ready to like they are more likely to adopt approach of like using online strategies to deliver part of their instructions and then use class time for more active activities, hands-on learning activities.

Host 14:45

Yeah, yeah, I think so too.

Yan 14:47

With AI coming on board, I feel like that need is going to grow even more. Because like with AI in the landscape, a lot of the learning outcomes need to be revisited. And my sense is that we will need there's a stronger need for students to be problem solvers.

Host 15:08

Yeah.

Yan 15:09

Not just like at a level where they know the knowledge, like it's not as the lower order thinking skills. And we always want them to have high order thinking skills, but I feel like that need is growing even bigger with AI in the landscape.

Host 15:26

That's so true.

Yan 15:27

That's why I feel like at this current stage, I feel like all courses can start thinking about how can they revisit the way they use the class time. How can we like kind of really use the opportunity to engage students in doing more high-order thinking, doing more problem solving in class with instructor guidance instead of using the more traditional lecture methods?

Hybrid Versus Flipped Explained

Host 15:58

Yeah, and you feel really passionately about that. I remember us talking about, I remember I asked a question that said something along the lines of, you know, what's the difference between a hybrid and a flipped model? And I remember you, you know, being very passionate about the fact that, you know, I think everybody should be doing this. And so could you just talk to that a little bit?

Yan 16:19

I would say I cannot say like every course should be taught this way, but I definitely feel more courses should be taught this way.

Host 16:26

Okay, yes.

Yan 16:27

And it's become hybrid versus flipped, those two, those are two different concepts in my mind. So hybrid learning. Hybrid learning actually doesn't specify what methods to use, it is like a more bigger umbrella. It means any combination of online and in-person learning that's hybrid. That's technically it's a mixing of in-person and online learning modes. As long as you have those two components, it's always hybrid, but it doesn't specify how you teach, how you learn.

Host 17:04

Okay.

Yan 17:04

It doesn't have any specification on the pedagogy being used. Whereas flipped classroom, although I know it's not as popular as maybe a decade ago, I mean the term is it does require particular sequence and pedagogies in the learning process. Like you always have to have those direct instructions in an online environment before class. And then you use the class time for those more hands-on active learning, problem-solving activities.

Host 17:38

Okay. So that's why you said they kind of overlap.

Yan 17:40

So that's why I see flipped learning as one type of hybrid learning. So that's why in our grant program, we always say hybrid and flipped.

Host 17:51

Got you. That makes sense. Yeah, I couldn't see how they overlapped before, but that makes sense to me. Yeah.

Making Class Time Problem-Centered

Yan 17:58

Yeah. And although like different instructors, different courses may do the level of hybrid a little differently, some of them they still want some level of in-person direct instruction, which is fine. Oftentimes, like we recommend doing that as a supplementary instruction in class, especially for those the parts that are not fully covered online, but students need that level of knowledge when they are doing the problems in class. So providing those direct instructions in class as a supplementary portion of the in-class time is still a good choice. So, but still, I we would say the focus of in-class should be problem-centered rather than delivery of instructions.

Host 18:52

And you're not saying every single class should look like this, and you're not saying that it should always be flipped or it should always be hybrid. But I guess the sentiment that I'm getting from what you're saying is that we have to think about learning differently now, and we are gonna have to start focusing on those higher order thinking skills, and these are some of those strategies that can help you achieve that.

Yan 19:15

Yeah, I definitely think like this approach, hybrid and flipped approach, provides more capability for the course to help students develop those skills because that's where the students need the support the most. I mean, the in-person support the most, is like when they're struggling with the activities, the problems, they need the support from the instructors, from the peers. And the class time is the best way to provide those support.

Host 19:47

Yes, yeah. Especially, you know, I think I talk about active learning a lot. Well, when I talk to instructors about active learning and some of the strategies that come with that, the main sentiment is when do I have time to do that? When do I have time to add that into instruction?

Yan 20:02

Yeah.

Host 20:03

And so I think that that's a really good point because that is how you kind of make it work in some cases.

Yan 20:08

And another question I often get from instructors is especially in my early projects, like now I'm like I'm going to develop those or those online direct instructional materials. Now, what do I do in class?

Host 20:22

Right, right. Like now?

Yan 20:23

Now what do I do? Like, I don't know how to film my class time.

Host 20:26

So what do you tell them?

Yan 20:28

So at the time, I think I work with them on like really looking at what would be the problems that students can begin to work on. Even like if they do not want to develop additional materials for those in-class activities, even like you didn't do part of their homework problems in class. And that's essentially the original idea of flipped classroom, is to move homework in class.

Host 20:54

Oh, okay. I did not know that.

Yan 20:55

That's why it's called flipped. Like it means that what you originally do outside of class, like homework now becomes in class. But what you normally do in class, which is like listening to the lecture, is now done outside of class. That's why it's called flipped.

Host 21:12

Okay.

Yan 21:15

So even by doing like some of the homework problems in class, gives students that direct, immediate support, feedback. That's going to help them grow. But you have to make additional efforts by maybe go to office hours or like email the instructor, post a question, get feedback in some way. Like they now can get the support directly in class.

Demystifying “Flipped” For Faculty

Early AI Prompts For Objectives

Host 21:40

And they have their peers to lean on as well. Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I'm so happy that you laid it out that way because I think that it can be really easy to hear all these terms and you know, think you know, but you really you sometimes you really have to look at just the base of it all and what it truly means and really look at it in a very simplified way. And I think you explain that in a very good way that everybody can understand, and then it doesn't seem so daunting because sometimes the names for things just seem daunting, like, oh, I want you to try flip, and they're like, I don't think I can do that because it just sounds so big. So I do I really appreciate you explaining that. I think the listeners are gonna really appreciate that description. So into the really, really interesting, and I know this is a hot topic for everybody right now because of how popular it's becoming, but let's talk about AI. You've done a couple of presentations at conferences recently, and you've been sharing how you started to use AI in some of this work. And I just want to kind of get into you know your head and what you were thinking when this first came about, and then how has it evolved since you started using AI for this kind of work?

Yan 22:58

Yeah, it evolved a lot. I think it has been at least two years now, like when we first came into contact with AI. So when I just started, I heard about this tool, but I hadn't really tried it out until I attended a webinar from by I think he was an English professor at Ohio State University. Kind of he did a webinar how do you how you can use ChatGPT for teach and learning and how to write prompts. So that's where I learned a strategy of how to write a structured prompt that specifies AI's role, knowledge, task, and output. And he kind of gave us like this formula, how to use it, and we kind of practiced with a prompt that will help us. So that's how I initially learned about how to write prompts. And then my first try was to use write a prompt for writing module-level learning objectives.

Host 24:04

Okay.

Yan 24:04

That's what a lot of my instructors are struggling with. They know what they are teaching, but how to phrase it as a learning outcome and do that for every single module. It takes a lot of time. So that's what I use the AI for the first time is to help them write module-level learning objectives based off of the subject area, the key topics that they are teaching in a particular unit module. So I yeah, I think at least one of my instructors used that to help flash out those module-level learning objectives. And then we we kind of look at them as a draft, and then we fine-tune every single one. So that's my first use. And then later on, I read this paper by Isa Molik about he's one of the major leaders in using AI in higher education. So his paper about assigning AI seven approaches for students with prompts. So I looked at his paper and he kind of described those different, seven different scenarios of how you can use AI for. And he was like, I think he was talking about using AI as someone as a peer or as a as a client. I don't remember, but someone will interact with students. Like at the time, I understand why we do something like that. Or maybe I haven't found a perfect use case in my courses yet.

Host 25:30

More of that back and forth, is what you mean.

Custom GPTs And Feedback At Scale

Yan 25:35

Like so it's not like you just write a prompt to get the response you need. It's about setting up AI as someone the student can interact with. So it's almost turning into a learning tool. But at the time, I haven't had a perfect scenario that I can apply it to. So I read about it, I know it, but I don't know how it can be applied to my projects. I do see the opportunity that I can write prompts for my hybrid learning brand projects. It can really make the process of writing learning objectives easier. Why don't we use it for other design tasks in this process? Right. And also at the same time, like we were expanding the hybrid learning program to a cohort model, which means I will have more courses, more instructors to work with, not just like the three of three instructors I work with a year. We were planning, I think it was last year, so we expanded to seven courses. So I had to work on five.

Host 26:37

Wow.

Yan 26:37

I worked on five courses, which is much more than what I used to handle. But the AI prompts really helped. So remember earlier I was talking about the instructor came to me and asking, so now what should I do in class?

Host 26:51

Right.

Yan 26:52

I can help them, I can work with them to bring some ideas. With like my usual number of courses, no problem. I can handle that. But with five doing that for every single course, it will take a lot more time for me. But with the AI tool, so the AI prompts can suggest those activity ideas and also like cross-topic project ideas, assignment ideas. So it can give you a lot of application context that the course can use. And like and it like it generates those. So instructors can kind of use that as the starting point and gradually develop better ideas.

Host 27:34

Right.

Building A Suite Of Design Bots

Yan 27:35

That's when I write about five or six prompts for different design tasks in the hyperlearning process. And at the time, I think the instructors they were all using the free version of ChatGPT. Just like prompt template replaced the like the places where it's a placeholder, replaced those with their terminology, with their subject area. So it worked. It worked pretty well. And then I went to the OLC conference last year where I went to sessions by Arizona State University. So they were kind of the leading, the leading university who were the first high education institution that had the ChatGPT enterprise version. So they have full access to all the ChatGPT functionalities, like as a subscriber. So I know like they have cool stuff to share. So I went to their session and they shared about how they set up custom GPTs, like instructional design tools, or as tools that can support student learning, like providing feedback.

Host 28:41

Yeah.

Yan 28:41

So they provide like some sort of working sheets, help you brainstorm, come up with your own custom AI tool, custom GPT. And I also at the same time, I just got the ChatGPT team subscription from Delta. So that made it possible for me to try it out on my own. So after I came back from the conference, I know I will be using that for my hybrid learning grants, but at the time I had one major challenge from one of the courses. So the instructor had a lot of students, 200 to 300 students a semester, no TAs. So it was a communication course, and it's really challenging for her to provide feedback to individual students' work.

Host 29:28

Yeah.

Yan 29:28

Like what she tells students most of the time in the past is the rubric is your feedback.

Host 29:34

Oh, right. Because I mean, how else would you do that?

Yan 29:42

There's no way she can do that with that many students and the very little resources that she has. It's important for to provide those individualized feedback to every single student. And then think of the chat custom GPT. I feel like that's why don't we use that? So I talked to an instructor about what it can do. I made a prototype, like with what I was envisioning as the type of interaction that we can provide and write a prototype for her to play with. So she gave me some suggestions, like prompt them to think more, prompt them to think about how to apply certain concepts to their writing, like anything that they should be, things that they should be considering, but they haven't incorporated. So we kind of back and forth did some revision to that custom GPT, and then we tried it out in the spring semester. So it went pretty well. It was a completely optional tool for students to use, and it has knowledge about the concepts that's being taught in the class. So it comes by looking at those, like it gives students feedback about what they did well, what are the places that they could do better. So students make see the feedback, make some revisions, and then they submit to the final version. Her graders said she does feel like the quality, the overall quality went up.

Host 31:09

That is really cool.

Yan 31:12

It's so easily accessible. Like they do not have to like go to office hours.

Host 31:18

Nice, nice. So tell me about your bots. So you tested it out in this first iteration by just now, it's totally fine because I think that it is important to talk about, especially because you know there can be many reasons why you would use bots. But I love how you tested it out with instructors for addressing specific needs. But then I know that there's a whole cohort of bots that you have created. I want to talk about those a little bit now.

Better Ideas Through Pedagogy + AI

Yan 31:48

Yeah. So, yeah, so after I have worked with instructors on those bots for specific courses, I really feel like I have this need to develop those chatbots for my hyperlearning courses because all the prompts that I used originally can be implemented as a chatbot, like a custom GPT. It has a much better advantage than the original prompt because I can train it with a lot of the design strategies, design principles that I use, and a lot of examples that I have accumulated over the years. And that's what I did. I kind of in my original design framework, and I have a design process aligned with that framework. That process kind of breaks down the hyper learning course design into very small steps. And I created those custom assistance for those individual small steps. Because that kind of makes the problem that AI is dealing with somewhat well structured. Like it's very specific task. It's not like you go and ask, oh, Chat GPT, create a course for me. That's a big one.

Host 33:04

Right, right. It won't know where to start. Even you're like, I don't think I can develop the materials.

Yan 33:11

Like it's just too big of a problem. You need to break it down.

Host 33:14

Yeah.

Yan 33:15

So my framework already has done that step. It has taken care of breaking down the whole course design into smaller steps, and now like my next step is just to develop those custom bots for individual steps, and it worked because for each of those steps, I know what strategies I need to use. I have examples for those individual steps from my previous projects. Right. So I set up a set of 10 custom GPTs for the entire process, starting from like initial analysis to writing up your course objectives to breaking down your content structure into a learning schedule to come up with application context ideas.

Host 34:05

And these are like bots. So you have like a bot that this specific job is just to do that. That's what you're saying.

Yan 34:12

Very specific job. And the previous bots will be used, can be used as inputs for the later bots.

Host 34:19

Wow.

Yan 34:19

So together they work together to create a whole course design.

Host 34:24

That's awesome.

Yan 34:24

But of course, that also gives the instructor opportunities to like revise the outputs from the previous bots. So then you have better input for the later bots. Like earlier when I was talking about instructors, kind of lack the idea of what to do in class. So instead of me working with every single instructor coming up with those ideas, the bot is doing the same job. And it actually does it better than me because I don't have that much knowledge about each subject area. But the bot has much better background knowledge than I do. Because like we always give it not only the subject area, but also all the course objectives, all the content topics, module topics, module level learning objects. So it prepares it about the content area that's being taught.

Host 35:20

Yeah.

How To Start: Outcomes First

Yan 35:21

And it has all the pedagogical theories that I train it with. So it kind of puts them together. And I was frequently surprised about how well it can. Like I was always amazed how well putting things together. Even if it's not the actual idea that the instructor wants to use in the class, it's always at least provides a good example that they can think along the same line with. And that happens. Like the instructor may not directly use, say, an online lecture outline if it has developed based on the topic. The instructor may not directly use that, but they understand, okay, this is a much more effective way to present the online materials in a lecture format.

Host 36:08

Which is half the battle.

Yan 36:10

Yeah, starting with an activation question, you get new knowledge, you provide an example that applies to them. You give students an interactive question to practice. So that kind of helps instructor understand what how they might be teaching, whether online or in class.

Host 36:31

Yeah, that's fantastic. And I think that it's good that it has all of that knowledge of good design and good teaching, but then also has that kind of expertise in the area and it can bring all those things together. That's very sophisticated. I think that's something that we would have never been able to fathom. That you have access to something that can think on that level, and I'm sure that it honestly for me, I was just talking about this in the last episode. Having the getting started portion done makes my job so much easier because sometimes it is hard hard to just get that jump start to get just get started and get that inspiration. So that's actually fantastic. So we are kind of moving to the close now, and I do want to talk a little bit about just kind of giving some support to faculty who may be interested in doing something like this. If a faculty member wanted to explore hybrid flipped learning model or wanted to experiment with using AI for course design, what do you think is a healthy starting point for that type of work?

Yan 37:38

So if instructors are interested in redesigning their courses using this approach, I would say do not start with just thinking about okay, what goes online, what stays in class. I think that's what a lot of instructors tend to start with.

Host 37:54

Yeah, that's what I would think.

Designing Repeatable Learning Cycles

Yan 37:56

But that's not like that's the I would say that's the output. That's the implementation of your design. But before you know how to implement that, you really need to start back from the learning outcomes. So that's why, like for the set of custom bots that we have, the first bot is a course objective assistant. We really still need to look at the learning outcomes, what knowledge and skills are being the students need to develop from the course. And then starting from that, kind of then look at the breakdown of the content structure and the different levels of application context, which means what type of application students can be doing on a weekly basis, cross-week, like at topic level, even across semester. What are the application contexts? And then how does that those application context can be mapped onto the content learning structure? So that's the big one.

Host 39:01

Okay, okay.

Yan 39:01

We have yeah, the custom box we have really helps the instructor do those individual steps and then put together the big pictures.

Host 39:09

Yeah.

Student-Centered Experience Design

Yan 39:10

So after you have the big picture, then you can start thinking about okay, how would my learning cycle look like? So, yeah, learn that's a whole big topic. In fact, the Moodle course roadmap tool that we developed is all about the learning cycle. Like we are visualizing the learning cycles, different learning cycles throughout the semester for the students so that they can progress. So, how would you design a learning cycle that is repeatable and kind of also the the essential idea is we organize the process into steps along the cycle, and the steps have an increasing level of challenge. Okay. Because with increasing level of challenge, we wanted the increasing level of challenge to match the students' incremental skills. And when those match, that creates the best motivation.

Host 40:06

Oh, okay, okay.

Yan 40:07

So that's why learning cycle design is really important. So for the hyper learning grants that I work with, learning cycle design is a very important step that we accomplish. Although, with that, we do not have a chatbot for that specifically.

Host 40:24

Okay.

Yan 40:25

This is something the instructor needs to come up with. Like with output from the previous bot, they come up with this learning cycle design because they know the best. What is the best process of leveling up the learning challenge? How to get students from like a beginner to more sophisticated problem solvers. And then after that, with once you have that repeatable learning cycle design, you can apply it to different topics, and then you graduate develop materials for that to support that learning cycle process. The learning cycle tells you what needs to go online, what needs to go in class, and how they can so it all starts from that learning cycle design.

Host 41:09

I love that. And I love how there is a place for bots and AI that can assist, but there is a sense of some things, it just needs to be the subject matter expert that is making this decision.

Yan 41:25

I think the integration of human intelligence and AI that creates the best result.

Hybrid Without Cutting Seat Time

Host 41:31

Yeah, no, I agree. And I actually really like that a lot. And it's important for instructors to know because it's not something that I feel like everybody just knows off the bat what's important for you to do versus what's fine for AI to take over. And I think it may be different depending on you know what you're using it for for one, and then also what you are teaching. So it's nice that you have it kind of down when it comes to your framework and your process to know that these are the things and these are not the things. So last but not least, what is one thing you hope instructors walk away with after hearing this conversation?

Yan 42:12

It can be a lot of things. Uh so for the hybrid flipped learning design, really, I would say design from the perspective of student. It's not just about designing the course materials and activities, it's about designing the learning experience that students are going through.

Host 42:30

Yeah.

Yan 42:30

I think that's a whole idea why we emphasize learning cycles so much. Like we put the materials activities into a process that students can like go that they can go through in a smooth way to encourage learning. That's what's important.

Host 42:53

Yeah.

Yan 42:54

Like it's how to present materials and activities in a way organized in a way that follows the natural process of how people learn.

Host 43:06

Yeah.

Yan 43:06

So again, I emphasize the design of a learning process, not just materials.

Host 43:16

Yeah and I so appreciate your expertise and just your willingness to share your knowledge. I think it feels somewhat accessible, I think, sometimes for folks who really care about good teaching and good quality learning, and just don't feel like they have the access to that knowledge because they don't have the time to really dive in. So I'm just extremely grateful for you coming on and talking about this and really bringing some awareness to what's possible. I think that's really all these episodes really are showing me is that there's inspiration out there and there are things that are possible, and you can try and you can do it.

Yan 43:56

Although I want to say when instructors think of hybrid learning, it doesn't mean that you have to reduce your original class time. Because I know in some colleges, hyper learning is designated for courses that like reduce maybe from twice a week class meetings to once a week class meeting. Right. That's a hybrid learning course. But in our hybrid learning grants, it doesn't have that requirement. Many of our courses do have the same amount of class time, but it's just like the format of the course. Different as long as you are interested in kind of allocating more of your class time for hands on active learning problem solving apply.

Host 44:39

Yes, and we want you to, and we want to we want to be there to help you and support you. So I'm so happy that you came on. Thank you so so much. I really appreciate it.

Yan 44:49

Thank you for having me, Deja.