Renae Spangler, PhD

Dr. Renae Spangler is an experienced educator and instructional design specialist with over 20 years of experience in learning and development. Currently serving as an Online Specialist at North Dakota State University, she supports faculty in designing engaging, accessible, and research-based online learning experiences. Her career spans K-12, higher education, and corporate training environments, and she brings passion for learner success, inclusive teaching, and high-impact educational practices.

What I Do

• Support faculty in designing, improving, and maintaining high quality online, blended, and technology enhanced courses for the College of Business
• Help faculty create clear, organized course structures in Blackboard so students can easily understand where to go, what to do, and why it matters
• Provide guidance on accessibility best practices for course materials, including Word documents, PowerPoints, PDFs, Excel files, videos, and Blackboard content
• Develop faculty trainings, resources, and practical tools related to online teaching, accessibility, engagement, course design, and instructional technology
• Partner with faculty to strengthen alignment among learning objectives, course materials, activities, assessments, and student expectations
• Support the use of instructional tools such as Blackboard, Ally, YuJa, Articulate Storyline, Vyond, Canva, Zoom, and other teaching and learning technologies
• Help translate online teaching best practices, accessibility expectations, and course quality standards into practical, manageable steps for faculty
• Handle the “how do I make this work better for students?” questions, including troubleshooting course design issues, clarifying confusing content flow, and finding realistic solutions that support both faculty and learners

Come to Me For:

• Support with online, blended, or technology enhanced course design
• Ideas for strengthening teaching and learning, including course clarity, student engagement, meaningful learning activities, and ways to help students apply course concepts
• Help organizing Blackboard course content so it is clear, consistent, and student friendly
• Questions about accessibility for course materials, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDFs, videos, and Blackboard content
• Guidance on improving learning objectives, assignment directions, course navigation, engagement, and assessment alignment
• Ideas for making online courses more interactive, manageable, accessible, and easier for students to follow
• Support using tools such as Blackboard, Ally, YuJa, Articulate Storyline, Vyond, Canva, Zoom, and other instructional technologies
• Faculty training, quick guides, templates, examples, and practical resources related to teaching and learning
• When you know something in your course is confusing, clunky, inaccessible, or not working well, but you are not sure how to fix it

• Instructional Design and Learning Science
• Educational Leadership
• Teacher Preparation Program Characteristics

• Gamification in Adult Learning
• Equity and Accessibility in Online Education
• Student Engagement in Asynchronous Courses
• Mentorship Program Design and Evaluation

• ED 4799 - The Professional Teacher
• ED 3100 - Introduction to the Foundations of Public Education
• ED 3110 - Educational Psychology
• ED 3140 - Human Relations in Education
• ED 3260 - Social Studies in the Elementary School
• ED 4820 - Student Teaching & Student Teaching Seminar