Instructional Design and Online Learning
Welcome!
I serve as a university administrator and professor in instructional design and online learning. I work with talented faculty and students to generate new knowledge and to create effective, appealing online learning environments. I have served in several administrative roles, including department head, center director, associate department chair, and program coordinator. My current role is Professor and Associate Vice Provost for Online Learning at Middle Tennessee State University, where I lead MTSU Online.
Research
My research and expertise is in the design and analysis of online learning environments. My work has been toward addressing faculty and student issues in online learning, including the following four components:
- Designing effective online learning environments
- Learner issues (satisfaction, etc.) as influenced by the learning environment
- Instructional strategies for online learning
- Informal learning in personal learning environments
Funded Projects
My research efforts have been funded by entities such as the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Education, the Institute of Education Sciences, IBM, Microsoft Corporation, the State of Tennessee, and the State of Florida.
Over more than two decades I have contributed to roughly 25 externally funded research, development, and evaluation projects with combined funding of about $5.2 million. My early work, as an instructional designer, focused on technology-supported instruction and professional development: U.S. Department of Education projects preparing teachers to provide literacy instruction to students with visual impairments, web-based professional development for teachers in Florida, and a CDC-funded school health program aimed at preventing obesity. As a principal or co-principal investigator, I later worked on studies of teaching and learning with emerging technologies, including the Microsoft- and FIPSE-funded Teachers Learning in Networked Communities (TLINC) projects, an IBM-funded project on integrating Web 2.0 tools in secondary instruction, and a $1.05 million Institute of Education Sciences study of vicarious learning with deep-level reasoning questions in middle and high school classrooms. I also contributed to the National Science Foundation–funded Engineering Research Center for Bioengineering Education.
More recent projects have applied online learning and instructional design to health, workforce, and defense settings. They include Project Fit Wizard, a State of Tennessee Department of Health project ($489,287, 2013–2016); a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs project designing and developing support for the spouses and families of deployed personnel ($690,000, 2015–2019); virtual reality training for nursing skills funded through State of Mississippi Workforce Innovation ($250,000, 2020–2022); and senior-researcher roles on U.S. Department of Defense projects, including the Army Research Laboratory’s Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT). As co-principal investigator, I also helped develop pilot massive open online courses on Coursera and edX for the Tennessee Board of Regents. A complete list is in my CV.
Selected Recent Publications and Presentations
A selection of my books, journal articles, and conference presentations from 2020 onward. My complete list of publications and presentations is in my CV.
- Pina, A., & Martindale, T. (2025). Educating faculty and senior administrators: How online education really works. Journal of Applied Instructional Design, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.59668/2222.21474
- Pina, A., & Martindale, T. (2025, October). Making the “ROI case” for AI in online learning [Conference presentation]. Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) Annual Convention, Las Vegas, NV, United States.
- Martindale, T., Amankwatia, T., Cifuentes, L., & Pina, A. (2024). Handbook of research in online learning: Insights and advances. Brill.
- Pina, A., & Martindale, T. (2024, October). New regulations affect how we teach and administer online courses and programs. What should we do? [Conference presentation]. AECT Annual Convention, Kansas City, MO, United States.
- Pina, A., & Martindale, T. (2023). Regular and substantive interaction in online courses: Why it matters for administrators. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 26(2), 1–14.
- Pina, A., & Martindale, T. (2023, July). Regular and substantive interaction is critical to distance learning administrators [Conference presentation]. Distance Learning Administrators Conference, Jekyll Island, GA, United States.
Teaching and Curriculum Development
I have contributed to the creation of three fully online master’s degree programs at three universities, as well as two fully online doctoral programs. I have developed and taught dozens of online courses and have pioneered the effective pedagogical use of social software tools for enabling collaborative learning environments. Below are courses I have taught at four universities, as listed in my CV. All are graduate courses unless noted.
Texas Tech University
- Introduction to Computing Technology (undergraduate)
University of West Florida
- Planning and Change in the Instructional Environment
- Instructional Video for Educators
- Telecommunications for Educators
- Designing Instructional Courseware
- Producing Digital Video
- Multimedia and Hypermedia Learning Environments
- Advanced Instructional Design
- Educational Research
East Carolina University
- Doctoral Seminar in Instructional Technology
- Web Teaching: Design and Development
- Development of Video Instruction
- Performance Technology: Principles and Strategies
- The Internet: Organization, Design, and Resource Discovery (online)
- Authoring Systems for Instructional Product Development
- Principles of Instructional Design (online)
University of Memphis
- IDT 7073/8073 Seminar in Computer-Based Instruction
- IDT 7061/8061 Computers, Technology, Learning, and the Classroom (online)
- IDT 7062/8062 Authoring Instructional Courseware (online)
- IDT 7090/8090 Design of Interactive Learning Environments I (online)
- IDT 7064/8064 School Change and the Internet (online)
- IDT 7052/8052 Instructional Technology and the Learner (online)
- IDT 7074/8074 Theories and Models of Instructional Design (online)
- IDT 7072/8072 Seminar in Online Instruction (online)
- IDT 8600 Seminar in Instructional Design and Technology Research (online)
- IDT 8100 Research in Instructional Design and Technology (online)
- IDT 7063 Seminar in Instructional Computing (online)
- IDT 7078 Seminar in IDT — Consulting and Project Management (online)
- IDT 7095 Developing Interactive Learning Environments II (online)
Speaking, Consulting, and Workshops
Speaking
I have had many opportunities to speak to audiences nationally and internationally about online learning, instructional design, and the changing landscape of higher education. Over the past two decades, I have given many keynote and invited presentations and almost one hundred refereed conference presentations, from campus events and regional gatherings to international events in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Bahrain, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Estonia. Invited engagements have included keynotes for the Malaysian Educational Technology Conference and the Hong Kong AECT Convention, and a convocation address at Arabian Gulf University.
My talks are grounded in my research and in my daily work leading online learning at a large public university. I can speak about regular and substantive interaction and the federal regulations that shape how online courses and programs are taught and administered; about helping faculty and senior administrators understand how online education really works; about faculty development and course design; about the return on investment of AI in online learning; and about how learning management system features guide instructional design. Earlier work on personal learning environments, social software, adaptive learning, and accessibility can add perspective on where educational technology and higher education is heading.
Workshops and Consulting
I serve as an occasional consultant in e-learning and instructional design for companies and organizations seeking to improve employee training and performance. I specialize in creating web-based (e-learning) environments for training and development. Recent clients include FedEx, the Southern College of Optometry, Cummins Engine Inc., the Wolf River Conservancy, U.S. Learning, the University of Mississippi, the U.S. Veterans Administration, and the University of Tennessee.
I lead workshops for faculty, instructional designers, and administrators who want practical, evidence-based ways to improve online teaching and learning. These can be tailored to your institution and audience and offered in person or virtually. Workshop topics include:
Faculty Development
Preparing Faculty to Teach Online
Practical, hands-on support for faculty who are new to online teaching or ready to teach it better. Participants work through course organization, communication, engagement, assessment, and the effective use of the learning management system, and leave with concrete changes they can make to their own courses.
Teaching Online
Engaging Online Learners
How to build courses where students interact meaningfully with the instructor, with each other, and with the content. We cover regular and substantive interaction, instructor presence, feedback, and community, and look at what the research says about satisfaction and learning in online environments.
Administering Online Learning
Leading and Administering Online Programs
For deans, chairs, directors, and other leaders responsible for online courses and programs. Topics include regulations and accreditation expectations, policy and governance, faculty support and workload, program growth, and how emerging technologies such as AI change the decisions leaders face.
Course Quality
Improving Online Course Quality
A structured approach to reviewing and strengthening online courses using quality standards, peer review, and evidence. Participants learn how to run continuous improvement cycles, partner with instructional designers, and make courses more accessible and effective for students.
Service
I have been closely involved with the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) for two decades. I served three elected terms on its Board of Directors, held leadership roles in its Design and Development Division, planned the 2018 international convention, and served as President in 2018–2019, followed by a year as Past-President, during which I chaired its Strategic Planning and Nominating Committees. I have also served on program committees for the International Council for Educational Media and the Hong Kong AECT convention and, since 2026, as an elected Vice Chair At-Large for the South Region of the University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA).
I have contributed to scholarly publishing as Section Editor of Learning, Design, and Technology, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Instructional Design, and a reviewer for journals including Educational Technology Research and Development, The Internet and Higher Education, the Journal of Computing in Higher Education, the Quarterly Review of Distance Education, TechTrends, and the British Journal of Educational Technology. I have also reviewed proposals for national convention programs and served as an invited panelist and reviewer for the National Science Foundation.
On campus, I have helped shape strategy and policy at each university I have served. At Middle Tennessee State University, I co-chaired a strategic planning section, served on the Board of Trustees AI Task Force and a policy task force on AI in instruction, assisted in the university’s transition to the Canvas learning management system, and chaired numerous search committees. At Mississippi State University, I co-directed the Virtual Reality Academy, and at the University of Memphis I served as program coordinator, associate department chair, faculty senator, and chair of the Information Technology Policy and Planning Council, among other roles.
About Me
I started out in instructional design and technology in Florida in the late 1990s, where I managed a digital media lab and taught graduate courses at the University of West Florida. Since then, my work has taken me to East Carolina University, the University of Memphis, Mississippi State University, and, since 2020, Middle Tennessee State University. I have been a professor, program coordinator, department head, and center director, and I have enjoyed each role most when it let me help faculty and students try something new with technology, from early web-based courses to virtual reality and generative AI.
Away from work, I like spend time with my family, and to make music (guitar, piano, percussion). I enjoy playing various sports and have switched to volleyball after decades of basketball. You get fouled less in volleyball, and the other team stays on their side of the net…
