The College of Education’s Digital Instruction Support Community (DISC) is committed to creating equitable, meaningful, engaging, and justice-oriented learning experiences. Its mission is to generate discipline-specific approaches to digital instruction, grounded in critical pedagogy and principles of mutual support among educators and students.
We resolutely pursue a fundamental objective: to provide the best instruction we can for all of our students—instruction that is inclusive, accessible, and caring. Nevertheless, we recognize that the unprecedented circumstances that we now face pose unprecedented challenges for our teaching. We believe, therefore, that this moment calls for a model of professional development that intentionally re-focuses on our pedagogical philosophies in light of the present contexts. DISC is concerned not only with offering up the how-tos of online teaching, but with the promotion of a generous, adaptive mindset towards emergency remote instruction. We follow a community-based process, in which our professional development foregrounds opportunities to learn from one another.
This website is a living document that will evolve and grow as the college moves forward. As such, it reflects College efforts to provide a variety of supports to meet the broad range of instructors’ needs.
Supports and Resources
Services We Provide
Support for mapping and planning your course design as you prepare for continued online/remote instruction.
Connecting you to relevant resources, both in terms of the meta-level philosophies of critical digital pedagogy and the praxes of teaching in digital settings.
Technology recommendations based on your context, content, and goals.
Personalized one-on-one consultations that address your specific needs, as well as feedback for your course design from the learner’s perspective.
Preparation for accessible, equitable, and inclusive learner experiences in the online context.
Support for developing assessments that leverage affordances of the online environment, but that also remain attentive to the challenging circumstances that we and our students currently face.
Strategizing about D2L and online instructor workflow.
Building a community of educator-learners across the College of Education, with the goals of strengthening relationships and making opportunities to learn from each other.
Fostering channels between the College of Education and the many additional opportunities for professional development, instructional design, and technological services available throughout MSU.
CED Micro-Credential in Online College Teaching
Register for the June cohort ofThe CED Micro-Credential in Online Teaching! This is a 4-week, asynchronous learning experience with optional synchronous check-ins and discussion opportunities facilitated by experienced online instructors. Whatever your teaching modality for summer and fall (fully online, hybrid, hyflex, etc.), the Micro-Credential will support you in building, revising, and improving your course with learning activities that directly support your teaching. Participation is available to all MSU instructors in the College of Education at no cost. Upon completion, participants receive a printable certificate. The next cohort of the Micro-Credential will run from August 3 – 30, 2021. Register today!
Newsletter Updates
Each week, we will be sharing information in the College of Education Weekly Updates Newsletter, where we will invite you to Engage with a particular theme, Explore resources related to that theme, and Connect with DISC’s facilitators and instructors across the College of Education. Revisit these communications in the Newsletter Archive.
Microsoft Teams
Join the DISC channel in MS Teams to chat with us!
The CED Online Course Review Prep and Checklist has been designed to support self-reflection as you transition your course online. You can make a copy of this document by going to File>Make a copy or you can download it by clicking File>Download>Select a format. Included in this document is a streamlined course mapping review template and additional support resources.
