Pilot for In-Load Online Teaching (PILOT)

Hybrid modality

CU Boulder is embracing flexibility in online, remote, and hybrid teaching to meet the evolving needs of students and faculty. By integrating these modalities and technologies, we aim to create a dynamic learning community that supports both resident and distance learners while enhancing student success.

What is PILOT?

PILOT is a two-year program designed to improve student success by driving transformational change in online, remote, and hybrid teaching. The program helps academic units align teaching practices with pedagogical excellence and research-based methods while achieving course and program objectives.

Key Goals:

  • Support flexible, effective teaching modalities.
  • Align with teaching excellence and academic objectives.
  • Provide options for academic units to evaluate and enhance these modalities.

How Does PILOT Work?

  1. PILOT Institute:
    • Teams meet at the start of the semester to define their projects.
  2. Ongoing Team Work:
    • Teams collaborate independently and with PILOT mentors to advance their initiatives.
  3. PILOT Coalition:
    • Teams convene each semester to share progress, discuss challenges, and exchange insights.

Why PILOT Matters

By leveraging online, remote, and hybrid teaching:

  • Educators can use the most effective modality for their subject.
  • Both resident and distance students gain access to high-quality learning experiences.
  • Academic units can conceptualize and evaluate new approaches to teaching excellence.

The Following Teams Have Been Selected to Participate:

Writing in the Age of AI Certificate

English Department
Led by Teresa Nugent and Thora Brylowe

The Writing in the Age of AI Certificate equips students with the technical and critical thinking skills needed to thrive in professional settings increasingly adopting AI-driven tools. Developed by the English Department, this certificate is open to all CU Boulder undergraduates and offers flexibility with courses available in asynchronous online, in-person, and hybrid formats. Students can even complete the certificate entirely online.

Certificate Requirements:

  • Complete three one-credit foundational skills courses (choose from six or more options).
  • Take the mandatory three-credit course, Writing in the Age of AI.
  • Earn six credits from pre-approved upper-division electives, such as advanced syntax, literature and data science, prosody, or AI in society.

The English Department’s expertise in writing and critical analysis makes it uniquely suited to lead this innovative program.

Inclusive Learning with Universal Design

Women and Gender Studies Department
Led by Maisam Alomar and Leila Gómez

The Women and Gender Studies (WGST) team is reimagining core courses to integrate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and expand access through online modalities. WGST’s commitment to equity and diversity in course content aligns perfectly with inclusive course design practices.

Initial Focus:

  • WGST 2000: Introduction to US Gender, Race, and Sexuality Studies
  • WGST 2600: Introduction to Global Gender, Race, and Sexuality Studies

By embedding UDL principles and best practices, these redesigned courses will create inclusive learning environments that value and respect the diverse perspectives of all students.

This forward-thinking approach positions the WGST Department as a leader in equitable and accessible education.

The Pilot for In-Load Online Teaching (PILOT) is a two-year program that aims to improve student success by supporting academic units in creating a transformational change for online, remote, and hybrid teaching and learning at CU Boulder. PILOT seeks to leverage online, remote, and hybrid modalities to create sustainable change that aligns with pedagogical excellence, research-based practices, and course and program objectives, while at the same time providing options for the academic unit, college, or university to conceptualize and evaluate these modalities as part of overall teaching excellence. PILOT supports our university’s common vision of teaching excellence independent of modality, and advances the recommendations for online and distance education from Academic Futures.

Our students want greater flexibility in the online, remote, and hybrid modalities offered by academic units. This can be accomplished through innovations such as the transformation of sections of a highly-enrolled lower-division course into online, remote, or hybrid modality, developing an undergraduate or graduate certificate in an online modality, or redesigning key courses to enhance student success and retention into an online format that can be utilized by the entire department. Many of our faculty and units desire to experiment with technology-enhanced learning across the spectrum of teaching modalities, from using various kinds of technology to support hybrid learning to developing fully online courses and programs. The further integration of these modalities and technologies is a vehicle for helping us to become a dynamic, creative learning community that allows educators the flexibility to use the right modality for their subject for both resident and distance students, further supporting student success.

PILOT is not promoting online, remote, and hybrid learning for technology’s sake, but instead seeks to support the development of courses and programs in these modalities or other online initiatives that serve clear pedagogical purposes, advance/further course and program objectives, and support student success.

We seek participation from academic units that are interested in implementing firmly grounded research-based practices to create flexible academic structures, including, for example, stackable credentials, the ability of students to mix-and-match online and face-to-face classes, and programs integrated with industry.

PILOT Initiative Teams will be led by a team-identified manager. Teams will work together for two years to plan and integrate an online, remote, or hybrid initiative that supports student success; identify and adopt course design best practices that align instruction, assignments, learning activities, and assessments with course learning outcomes; and develop a way to assess the initiative. The PILOT support group will assist initiative teams with strategic planning, program management development, alignment with university and college structures and goals, instructional design, and cross-campus collaboration.

  • Develop an undergraduate minor or certificate in an online modality
  • Create a new interdisciplinary certificate in an online modality
  • Transform sections of a highly-enrolled lower-division course into online or hybrid modality
  • Develop an online master course or templated design for key or foundational course(s) taught predominantly by tenure-track faculty, GPTIs or other temporary faculty
  • Redesign a key course into an online format that can be utilized by the entire department
  • Develop an online master’s degree program or graduate certificate
  • Create an online certificate or credential in which the academic unit is partnered with government or industry
  • Develop academic unit procedures and structures that empower faculty to flexibly use the right modality for their course, program, or student audience
  • Train an academic unit online manager who is able to support the end-to-end process for online and hybrid modalities from developing structures and procedures to instructional design to program launch
  • Develop online modality microcredentials that enhance the undergraduate experience
  • Create a certificate offered on the Coursera platform at the undergraduate or graduate level
  • Develop sharable practices for peer evaluation of online, remote, and/or hybrid teaching
Proposal Development Consultations

Location: Zoom: 

Please reach out to Karen Gebhardt and Kalpana Gupta, if you would like to meet in person.

  • Thursday, May 25, 2-4
  • Friday, June 9, 12-2
  • Friday, June 16, 12-2
  • Thursday, June 29, 2-4
  • Transform how the academic unit/college/university conceptualizes online, remote, and/or hybrid teaching and learning as part of their overall teaching excellence.
  • Be grounded in student success.
  • Create sustainable structures.
  • Share knowledge gained with the campus community.

A coalition of partners from across campus will support initiative teams in each step of the process, from initial questions through implementation, assessment, and sustainability planning throughout the two-year program period.

Please note that Fall 2023 will be a pivotal planning semester because of the need to work with university structures and timelines (e.g., new course proposals and new program proposals must be finalized and submitted to the university by January 2024).

To support the work, each initiative will receive up to $15,000 per year for two years. A maximum of three initiatives will be funded for the Fall 2023 cohort.

Applications for the Fall 2023 cohort must be received by Friday, June 30, 2023, by 5:00 pm. Please see the application information.

Pilot for In-Load Online Teaching (PILOT) aims to promote communication and collaboration among campus partners to support each funded team’s goals. PILOT will employ the following strategies:

  1. Initiative Team composition may include academic unit faculty, staff, leadership, graduate part-time instructors or teaching assistants, and undergraduate student representatives, and, if applicable, staff and faculty from other offices or academic units. Each team will identify a Team Manager who will provide leadership, organizational support, and communication among team members and with the PILOT support group. Teams will meet frequently to create, implement, evaluate, and revise the team action plan (meet approximately every 2 weeks throughout the academic year). Initiative teams will commit to work together for the duration of the two-year program period (student members will change as needed).
  2. PILOT Institute (9am-3pm will meet during the week before classes start, date TBD) will be the launch event for the program. Teams will participate in guided sessions with  facilitators who will inspire and support participants in the initial thinking about their initiative goals. Campus experts will facilitate engaging sessions on key topics. Teams will meet with the PILOT support group to create team action plans.
  3. PILOT Check-ins will connect Teams and Team Managers with the PILOT support group approximately every two weeks throughout the academic year to provide support and overcome roadblocks to success.
  4. The Assessment Support Team consists of CTL and ODA assessment experts who will work with the initiative teams to create and carry out feasible assessment plans, including data collection, analyses, and interpretation of results.
  5. PILOT Coalition (meets once per semester) comprises the team managers, applicable team members, and the PILOT support group. The coalition will convene each semester to share progress on plans, learn new strategies, discuss challenges, and address needs for support.

Timeline:

  • Friday, June 30, 2023, by 5pm: Applications for the Fall 2023 cohort due
  • Friday, July 14, 2023: Recipients announced.
  • Week before school starts: PILOT Institute
  • Every two weeks for the academic year:

Initiative Team meetings

PILOT Check-ins

  • Friday, October 6, 2023: Each team’s action plan finalized.
  • Fall semester, 2023: Attendance and presentation at PILOT Coalition
  • Friday, December 1, 2023: New course or program paperwork finalized at the academic unit level, if applicable.
  • January 5, 2024: New course or program paperwork submitted to university, if applicable.
  • Spring and fall semesters 2024: Continuation of initiative work.
  • Spring and fall semesters 2024, spring semester 2025: Attendance and presentation at PILOT Coalition
  • Spring semester 2025: Finalization of initiative

Funded Expenses

To support the work, each initiative will receive up to $15,000 per year for two years. A maximum of three initiatives will be funded for the Fall 2023 cohort.

Allowable Expenses

  • Initiative funds will support typically allowable expenses, which may include but are not limited to:
    • Faculty course release
    • Hourly wages
    • Materials, books, or supplies used in the initiative
    • Registration fees for group training webinars
    • Software licenses to collect or analyze data
    • Travel expenses to conferences or other trainings the support the initiative

Non-allowable Expenses

  • Pay or travel expenses for professional consultants or outside speakers

Participants in Initiative Teams agree to:

  • Be active participants in the team to plan, implement, assess, and reflect on the initiative;
  • Attend the PILOT Institute the week before the fall 2023 semester; and
  • Prepare a summary report (2-3 pages) to share annually with the PILOT Coalition.

Team Managers agree to:

  • Coordinate initiative activities for their own team;
  • Communicate with the PILOT support group and the Assessment Support Team at the designated intervals;
  • Attend the PILOT Institute the week before the fall 2023 semester; and
  • Participate in PILOT Coalition work sessions once each semester.
  • Teams will receive an annual initiative fund of up to $15,000 for design and implementation needs. Teams will decide how the funds will be used to support initiative activities. A team’s budget might include a course release for the team manager, but this may not be necessary for all teams.
  • Initiative teams will receive ongoing support from initiative partners such the Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL), Office of Information Technology (OIT), Office of Undergraduate Education, Office of Academic and Learning Innovation (ALI), and Office of Data Analytics (ODA).
  • Individual participants will receive an annual formal letter documenting their participation, which may contribute to teaching and/or service expectations and can be included in a dossier.

 Application Information