Overview
Images support learning when they’re chosen intentionally. Research shows that learners understand and retain information better when words and visuals work together. But decorative, unrelated, or overly complex images distract learners and increase cognitive load. This guide helps you select, create, and evaluate images that actually enhance learning.
Key Principle
An image should be included because it helps learners achieve a learning outcome, not because it makes a page look more appealing.
Before adding an image, ask:
What will learners understand, remember, or do better because this image is included?
When to Use
Images should be selected based on their instructional value. Effective images provide information that would be difficult, inefficient, or less engaging to communicate through text alone.
Use images when they help learners:
Understand Concepts
Images can make abstract ideas more concrete by showing relationships, structures, or examples.
Example: A diagram showing the components of a communication model.
Visualize Processes
Processes are often easier to understand when learners can see the sequence of events or actions.
Example: A flowchart illustrating a quality assurance process.
Learn Procedures
Step-by-step visuals can support skill development and performance.
Example: Annotated screenshots showing how to complete a task in software.
Recognize Real-World Examples
Photographs and illustrations can help learners identify objects, environments, or situations they may encounter in practice.
Example: Images of workplace hazards in a safety training course.
Analyze Data
Charts and graphs allow learners to interpret trends, comparisons, and patterns more efficiently than tables of data.
Example: A bar chart comparing sales performance across regions.
Image Use Standards
Use images from the following sources, in order of preference:
1. Images owned or created by Excelsior or the SME
2. Creative Commons-licensed images permitting educational use
3. Public domain images
4. Commercially licensed images for which Excelsior holds a license and/or is provided in adopted/paid materials
5. Third-party images used under good-faith fair use (TEACH Act)
Content Guidelines
Best Practices
- Ensure the discussion supports one or more module outcomes.
- Connect the prompt to a real-world scenario, current events, authentic problem relevant to the field, and/or students’ personal and/or professional experience.
- If drawing on students’ experience, ensure it’s likely they have the experience.
- Use open-ended questions (for example, framed around “how,” “why,” “what if,” or “describe”).
- Keep the prompt focused. It should generally call for a 1–3 paragraph response.
- Scope the prompt carefully: too broad leads to surface-level posts; too narrow leaves students with little to say to each other.
- Provide 2–4 specific response criteria questions to structure student responses
Avoid
- A long, bulleted list of questions to answer.
- Requiring a lengthy response. Discussions are not the place for lengthy papers.
- Prompts or questions that lead or presume a correct perspective.
- For example, “How does remote work improve employee productivity and work-life balance?” steers students toward a preferred answer or conclusion.
- A more open ended-ended question would be, “To what extent does remote work benefit employees and organizations, and what tradeoffs should be considered?”
- Questions/prompts that have yes/no answers or a single correct answer.
- “Should colleges require students to take online courses?” simply requires a yes or no response.
- Overloading a single discussion with multiple unrelated concepts.
AI-Resistant Strategies
- Design prompts that allow students to support multiple defensible viewpoints with evidence.
- Example: “Find one credible source published within the last two years that addresses the relationship between social media and public opinion. Using both your source and this week’s materials, argue whether social media strengthens or weakens democratic participation.”
- Require direct engagement with module materials (lessons, videos, case studies, datasets, etc.).
- Example: “Using the interview clip from Lesson 3.2 and the Hernandez case study, identify one communication breakdown and propose an alternative response.”
- Ask students to relate concepts to their own experiences.
- Example: “Identify a leadership decision you have observed in a workplace, school, or community setting. Analyze it using this week’s ethical framework.”
- Ask students to explain how they arrived at a conclusion or where they struggled.
- Example: “What part of this week’s reading most challenged your assumptions, and how did your thinking change?”
- Add a constraint to the discussion prompt/scenario to require prioritization, tradeoff analysis, and justification.
- Example: “Your community has received a small grant to address food insecurity, but funding will only support one initiative for the next year. Which approach should be prioritized and why?” instead of “How should a community address food insecurity?”
- Ask students to add conditions and/or criteria to their response.
- Example: “Take a position on whether employers should monitor employee productivity while working remotely. In your response, identify at least two conditions or criteria that would make monitoring more or less appropriate. “
Note: AI-resistant discussions are designed to promote authentic engagement by emphasizing application, interpretation, interaction, reflection, and course-specific analysis rather than generic summary responses.
Examples
Apply Theory to Practice
Explore how this concept applies to a real-world scenario in your field.
Connect to Personal Experience
Reflect on how course concepts relate to your own experience.
Explore Different Viewpoints
Examine a complex issue with multiple valid perspectives.
Roles and Responsibilities
| Task | SME | ID |
|---|---|---|
| Identify the concept or topic | Lead | Consult |
| Draft the discussion prompt | Collaborate | Collaborate |
| Define post and response requirements | Collaborate | Collaborate |
| Write or approve the grading rubric | Consult | Lead |
| Review for alignment to learning outcomes | Consult | Lead |
| Review for alignment to Excelsior Discussion standards | Consult | Lead |
Technical Specifications
Allow Threaded Replies
When enabled, students can reply directly to a peer’s post rather than only to the original prompt, creating nested conversation threads. This is recommended for discussions where peer dialogue and back-and-forth exchange are central to the learning purpose. For simpler check-in or reflection discussions, threaded replies may not be necessary and can make the discussion harder to follow.
Users Must Post Before Seeing Replies
When enabled, students must submit their initial post before they can read their classmates’ responses. This is strongly recommended for most discussions, as it ensures students engage with the prompt independently before being influenced by peer responses — preserving the authenticity and variety of initial posts. Disable this setting only when the discussion is explicitly designed for students to react to or build on a visible shared prompt or resource.
Group Discussion
When enabled, the discussion is divided among smaller student groups rather than the full class. This is a good option when the course has a large enrollment and whole-class discussion becomes unwieldy, or when the learning design calls for closer peer collaboration within a consistent small group. Note that group discussions require groups to be set up in Canvas in advance, and each group gets its own separate discussion thread.
AI Use Policy
Course Development (SME/ID)
Acceptable Use
- Generating initial prompt and/or case study/scenario drafts for SME and ID review and refinement
- Brainstorming discussion topics or angles tied to a module outcome
- Suggesting response criteria as a starting point
- Checking prompt clarity, readability, or accessibility
Student
Default Policy
For most discussions, we recommend that AI-assisted posts are not permitted because their value depends on authentic student voice and genuine peer exchange.
Acceptable Use
In courses where AI literacy is a learning outcome, discussions can be a valuable space to have students critically engage with AI-generated content—for example, prompting students to evaluate an AI-generated response and explain where it succeeds or falls short
Review Checklist
Alignment: Does the discussion prompt connect clearly to a module outcome?
Relevance: Does the prompt highlight the real-world and/or personal relevance/context of the discussion—either in its wording or in the anticipated student response?
Discussable: Does the prompt invite varied perspectives rather than a single correct answer or predictable response?
Scope: Is it clear to the student what the desired scope of a good initial post is?
Evidence: Is it clear to the student what evidence a student should be using to support their response?
Experience: If the specified argumentative support is personal experience, is it safe to assume that most students would have had the relevant experience the prompt asks them to draw upon?
Responses: Is it clear what students are supposed to post and what they should consider in their responses to other students’ posts?