"The Circle" Explained

In the spring of 2013 our journey toward the creation of an educational philosophy for the Center for Digital Learning & Innovation (CDLI) at Seattle University began. We were new to the university and part of a newly-created department tasked with assisting faculty in designing online and hybrid courses. It was during a new employee orientation session where SU’s instructional design team was first exposed to the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP). Labeling the IPP as “an instructional designer’s dream”, we have since made Ignatian’s 400-year old ideas the cornerstone of the instructional design process and the quality standard for modern day online and hybrid education at Seattle University.

“The Circle”, as we refer to it, is the representation of what we feel are the most important characteristics for electronically-mediated courses developed through CDLI. It was created not only with IPP principles in mind, but also the best practices for digital delivery and current theory in online course design. The Circle serves dual purposes – it represents our philosophy around course creation for online and hybrid modalities and, in its expanded form, serves as our quality standards by which online courses at the University are evaluated. The next few pages outline what we feel are the most significant works that played a part in the creation of "The Circle".

A complete list of works that were influential in developing the course can be found on this document Download document

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