The recent All-Faculty Meeting recognized Lisa-Ann Barnes, who won the Distance Learning Innovation in Online Course Design Award, and this year’s Distinguished Teaching Award Winners: Kimberly Pusateri (Undergraduate Programs), Mac Steele (Professional Development Programs), and Amul Chapla (Graduate Programs). Each award recipient shared their thoughts on student engagement, highlighting practical strategies on varied parts of the classroom experience: assessment design and feedback, cognitive dissonance, real-world relevance, and case studies and storytelling.…
Profile Jackie Wickham Smith
As SPS’s Assistant Director for English Language Support and Academic Skills, Christine Fiorite works with students in accelerated master’s programs based on the Chicago campus. She meets with students one-on-one and in small groups to support academic reading and writing, presentation skills, and class participation.…
When students enroll in our programs, we know they’re looking for courses that provide a balance between theory and practice. That’s why, when we develop new programs or revisit existing ones, we start with one essential question: What do professionals in this field need right now…and tomorrow?…
Several members of the Distance Learning Team attended TEACHx 2025 on May 21st and 22nd. The conference, presented by Northwestern IT’s Teaching and Learning Technology Team, showcased innovative approaches to higher education instruction and student support. As in previous years, the conference was informative, thought-provoking, and very well run.…
The distance learning team includes several talented instructional technologists whose creative use of visuals enriches learning in our online courses.
We asked some of the newest members of the team, freelance instructional technologists Jodi Herman and Victor Pedro, to share insights on how visual design can impact student experience.…
Many SPS faculty collaborate as co-teachers. This allows us to offer unique courses to our adult student population due to their combined expertise. Read on to hear about some of our faculty’s experiences as co-teachers.
Alex Kerr and Shawna Mehta, Market Research
“One of the things I love about co-teaching with Shawna is that it has brought a completely new and fresh perspective to a pre-existing course.…
This month, we’re spotlighting the Distance Learning team’s administrative assistant, Shai Mason. Read on to find out more about Shai!
How long have you worked here? How did you come to higher education?
I have worked at Northwestern University for one month and I was attracted to higher education for the diversity and learning environment.…
This month, we’re spotlighting the newest member of the Distance Learning team, content specialist Nathan Schmidt. Read on to find out more about what brought Nathan to Northwestern!
How long have you worked here? How did you come to higher education? …
This month’s issue of our department’s newsletter, The DL Digest (subscribe here!) continued our exploration of SPS’ High Impact Teaching practices, focusing on feedback.
We asked four distance learning team members to share their favorite feedback styles with us, and challenged our readers to match the staffer with the feedback philosophy.…
This August, we’re spotlighting Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs Kyle Einck. Kyle oversees the Biological Sciences and Information Systems Bachelor’s Degree programs, along with ten post-bacc programs and several additional certificates and concentrations.
How long have you worked here? How did you come to higher education? …