What Is Continuous Improvement?

Aug. 24, 2021

Have you ever wondered what continuous improvement means? We broke it down for you below.

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A staggered lit arrow light is mounted on a concrete wall.

Continuous Improvement is a way to maintain the quality of courses over time, as well as improving the student learning experience through the intentional use of technology and best practices. Our continuous improvement team is focused on collaborating with instructors to make each course the best it can be. Visit our website to find out what other services (like multimedia creation!) we offer.

During the creation of a new course, an Instructional Designer may already have suggestions for interactivity, course flow, accessibility, and more. For existing courses, we complete a Course Design Inventory (CDI) - a checklist of sorts - to see if these ideas, methods, processes, etc., are already in the course, or if the course could benefit from their addition. If you are familiar with the Quality Matters (QM) rubric, a CDI is an informal, less rigorous review, which also helps align the course for a full QM review in the future.

The CDI is completed by an Instructional Designer - for a fresh perspective, it may not be the same designer you originally worked with - and then a meeting to discuss the results occurs. During that meeting, the instructor can prioritize the suggestions they want to implement before the course runs again. Collaborating with the Instructional Designer, the instructor can make large or small improvements to their course, and this helps ensure the course provides an excellent learning experience for students. Continuous Improvement also makes it easier (and more enjoyable) for instructors to administer the course, by removing obstacles to student learning.