Student Engagement | Coulter Faculty Commons

Community-Engaged Courses & Upcoming Deadlines

by CFC | Aug 26, 2026 | Blog, Campus Community Connections, Collaborative Learning, Student Engagement

WCU’s Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (CCESL) provides support for faculty interested in the practice of community-engaged learning and coordinates the designation process for Service-Learning Courses (SLC) and Community Experience Courses (CEC).

For more information on these high impact practices, please refer to the CCESL website or contact Joy Mischley, Director.
She is happy to answer questions, collaborate on course ideas or projects, or present information about community-engaged courses at faculty meetings.

The Designation Deadlines are:

October 1-6, 2026, for Spring 2027 courses
February 15, 2027, for Summer & Fall 2027 courses

The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good: A Call for an Early Start in Undergraduate Research

by Chad Hallyburton | Mar 25, 2026 | Blog, Problem Based Learning, Student Engagement, Teaching & Learning Tip

By CFC Faculty Fellow Chad Hallyburton, Environmental Health Sciences

I absolutely hated high school.

As an undergraduate student, I spent some semesters just “phoning it in.”

But when I arrived at WCU as a graduate student, the creativity and independence of original research ignited my passion for learning, and I haven’t looked back since. I sometimes wonder what my academic career would have looked like if I’d discovered research earlier, and that makes me want to give my students an early start with scholarship.

This is important, because early involvement in undergrad research is a high-impact practice that improves scientific skills, critical thinking, and problem solving, and makes students more employable by fostering their time management, teamwork, and communication skills.

Undergrad research students are better prepared for their degree work, for graduate school, for their future careers, and for life.

But too few students get involved. I see my own Undergraduate Research Student Partners grow and flourish, but often only the “best and brightest” show up at my door looking for opportunities, and often only later in their undergraduate careers.

So, during the Fall 2025 semester I developed and evaluated a curriculum engaging first-year seminar students who conducted an applied Public Health project.

They collected and analyzed data on low flu vaccination rates among our first-year WCU students, described barriers to vaccination in this population, and worked with the Division of Student Affairs to share social media and print messaging encouraging student vaccination. They described the reach and impact of their messages and developed poster presentations with their suggestions for how WCU could more effectively support students’ vaccine decision-making.

Poster of a WCU student in a purple shirt and backpack chasing a cartoon flu virus, with the caption “Don’t let the flu call the shots.”

After completing this Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience, or CURE for short, science process confidence grew in over 80% of the class, many identified as potential future scientists, and about two-thirds said they were more interested in finding future undergrad research opportunities.

Was this project perfect? Did it include all the elements of undergraduate research that students might experience working in an advanced research lab? Absolutely not. But it was a first step towards showing the newest members of our WCU community that scholarship is within their reach.

Many of you already support undergraduate research. If you try to engage more students earlier in their careers, will your efforts be perfect? Nope. But you can surely do something good.

If you need some inspiration, here are a few good resources to get you going:

Opportunities to Learn about Artificial Intelligence

by April Tallant | Nov 4, 2025 | AI, Blog, Classroom, Educational Technology, Faculty Development Workshop, Help Your Students, Learn, Pedagogy, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning

AI in the WCU Classroom

Join colleagues for an open discussion on using AI in teaching and learning on Tuesday, Nov 18, 3:30-5:00 pm. This two-part program will include sharing strategies for integrating generative AI into instruction and course management, as well as approaches for setting clear expectations around ethical student use. We’ll also consider how to design learning goals that emphasize key human skills. For more information and to register, read the blog post.

UNC System Pilot: Student AI Literacy

The UNC System Office is piloting a new AI Foundational Skills program, developed collaboratively by faculty, librarians, and instructional designers across the System, in Spring 2026 to strengthen student AI literacy and workforce readiness. This collaborative initiative gives students practical AI experience and critical evaluation skills while connecting them with industry perspectives. We’re seeking faculty to integrate the training into their courses and provide feedback, which will help refine the program. Faculty will receive a stipend. Interested? Complete this interest form to receive more information. Questions? Contact Dr. Heather McCullough, Director, Learning Technology and Open Education, hamccullough@northcarolina.edu

Engaging Students Through Course-Based Research & Creative Inquiry

by April Tallant | Oct 28, 2025 | Blog, Mentoring, Pedagogy, Research, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning

As instructors, we make pedagogical choices with the understanding that we may never see the full impact those choices have on students’ learning and growth. One exception I’ve found especially rewarding is integrating undergraduate research as a pedagogical strategy. Through this approach, I’ve been able to see students genuinely activate their curiosity, gain knowledge and understanding, think critically, and articulate their learning. The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) defines undergraduate research as “a mentored investigation or creative inquiry conducted by undergraduates that seeks to make a scholarly or artistic contribution to knowledge.” WCU is known for offering undergraduate research opportunities through programming, funding, and conferences. For example, WCU’s Research and Scholarship Celebration (RASC), scheduled for March 25-26, 2026, provides the perfect venue for students to showcase their research and creative work. Have you been looking for ways to foster student curiosity and inspire deeper learning? The following assignment ideas invite students to take ownership of their learning and create projects they can proudly present at conferences such as RASC.

Evidence-based policy brief or white paper: Ask students to address wicked problems in your discipline
Creative artifact: Students design artifacts such as a digital exhibit, website, podcast, or short documentary grounded in research
Community engaged research: Students partner with a local organization to solve a practical problem
Computational or simulation-based research: Students compute a data set (or part of one) and analyze it
Student-designed product: Students design a model, system, or tool (physical or digital) informed by research
Cross cultural comparison project: Students compare issues/phenomena across cultures, countries, or global systems
ePortfolio: Students build an ePortfolio over a semester or program, curating their work, reflecting on growth, connecting to future goals
Traditional empirical research: Students analyze secondary data or open data sets
Survey or interview research: Students design and administer a survey or interview protocol to explore aspects of the course that pique their interests

Certainly, the context of your courses, such as the number of enrolled students, will factor in whether undergraduate research as a pedagogical strategy works for you. For more information about undergraduate research as a pedagogical strategy, aligning your student learning outcomes with undergraduate research projects, or scaffolding and assessing research assignments, please stop by the Coulter Faculty Commons at Hunter Library 172, call us at 828.227.7196, or make an appointment. For questions about undergraduate research compliance and human subject compliance, contact the Office of Research Administration at irb@wcu.edu or 828.227.2921. For more information about RASC, contact Suzanne Melton at scmelton@wcu.edu or 828.227.2575.

Microlearning Made Simple: What It Is and How to Do It

by April Tallant | Sep 30, 2025 | Blog, CFC Insider, Educational Technology, Online Learning, Pedagogy, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning

Microlearning is a pedagogy that works well in both in-person and online courses. While definitions of microlearning vary, there is at least some consensus on the benefits and how to approach it. At its core, microlearning delivers content in short, small chunks that can be accessed on demand. Other benefits include reduced cognitive load for students, better knowledge retention, improved learning outcomes, and student engagement.

Here are some tips for incorporating microlearning into your classes:

Focus on one objective or concept. Determine the goal so you can structure the lesson and select the best medium given your objective.
Use one medium (videos are the most common) with multiple learning elements. Examples of learning elements include visuals, audio, quizzes, slideshows, PDFs, and links. PowerPoint is a nice medium because you can include video, visuals, and link out to PDFs and quizzes.
Keep it short and focused. Research indicates 30 seconds to up to 15 minutes, and if you are using video, bear in mind that videos longer than 9 minutes results in a drop in viewer attention.
Make it interactive. Enhance videos by embedding 1–2 quiz questions directly into them (for example, you can do this directly in Panopto), or by using slides that prompt students to guess an answer, then click to reveal the correct response on the following slide.

It’s fun to explore ways to integrate microlearning into courses. For in-person classes, one effective approach is to assign a microlearning module as homework before class. This helps students prepare for an active learning experience when the class meets. In online courses, microlearning can be used as either standalone modules or be embedded within larger units.

If you’d like to explore microlearning further, consider stopping by the CFC to chat or schedule a consultation with one of our educational developers.

References

Balasundaram, S., Mathew, J., & Nair. S. (2024). Microlearning and learning performance in higher education: A post-test control group study. Journal of Learning for Development 11(1), 1-14.

Denojean-Mairet, M., López-Pernas, S., Agbo, F. J., & Tedre, M. (2024). A literature review on the integration of microlearning and social media. Smart Learning Environments, 11(1), 46.

Kohnke, L. (2021). Optimizing microlearning for mobile learning. In Corbeil, J.R., B.H. Khan, & M.E. Corbeil (Eds.), Microlearning in the digital age [pre-print]. Routledge.

NC State Teaching Resources (n.d.). Micro-learning with digital tools. Available at: https://teaching-resources.delta.ncsu.edu/micro-learning-with-digital-tools/

Thillainadesan, J., Le Couteur, D. G., Haq, I., & Wilkinson, T. J. (2022). When I say… microlearning. Medical education, 56(8), 791–792.

Increasing Student Engagement With Regular and Substantive Interaction

by | Nov 17, 2023 | Active Learning, Blog, Canvas, Educational Development, Help Your Students, Learn, Online Learning, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning, Teaching with Technology

How many days do you log into Canvas and interact with the students? How quickly do you give helpful feedback on activities and assessments? Do you set your students’ expectations by including an email/discussion response statement in your syllabus?

Why do we pose these questions? Frequent interaction and purposeful engagement with students are a hallmark of excellence in teaching and learning. It looks different depending on whether you are teaching in-person, hybrid/blended, or online. We ask students in our in-person courses to log into Canvas every day to see announcements, their grades and feedback, and content. This provides opportunities to increase engagement with students outside of the scheduled classroom time. For hybrid and online faculty, we can use best practices to increase engagement with students who may be residential or remote.

decorative image of regular and substantive interaction

Faculty who teach online regularly or occasionally should be aware of Regular & Substantive Interaction (RSI), a regulation from the Department of Education that went into effect July 2021. RSI is a determination of whether an online course is a correspondence course (which doesn’t qualify for Federal financial aid) or a distance education course. These recommendations also apply to in-person teaching.

Fortunately, we have resources like the Quality Scorecard from the Online Learning Consortium to help us identify how we are meeting RSI and areas where we may need to improve our efforts. Over the next few months, we will share the criteria with suggestions on how to put them into practice.

The scorecard is divided into 6 sections: Course Overview and Information, Course Technology and Tools, Design and Layout, Content and Activities, Interaction, and Assessment and Feedback.

Let’s look at the first two sections.

Course Overview and Information:

The course includes a welcome and how to get started, as well as an overall orientation. Content is organized in Modules.
Module overviews make content, activities, assignments, due dates, interactions, and assessments transparent, predictable and easy to find. *A suggested best practice is to include an overview page as the first page of each module.
Course outcomes are observable and measurable, and congruent with the assessments and assignments.
Include the online learner success resources and contact information for the department and program, in addition to instructor information.

Course Technology and Tools:

It is extremely important to use Canvas, WCU’s approved and supported LMS.
Include information on how to contact the IT HelpDesk in a prominent place so students can find it when they need it.

Remember, these RSI standards are useful in increasing student engagement in any modality!

Next up in this series:

Designing for Student Engagement using RSI

The CFC would love to partner with you to design, redesign, or make improvements to your Canvas course. Let us know what you need through our Consultations Scheduling Page.

Source: Regular and Substantive Interaction, SUNYOnline – https://www.sunyempire.edu/dlis/design-your-course/regular-and-substantive-interaction/