Narrative-Driven Faculty Development: Using Story and Play to Engage Instructors with Technology

Faculty often approach instructional technology training with skepticism, fatigue, or limited time as they juggle competing priorities such as accessibility, AI, course design, and institutional initiatives. To address this challenge, a centralized instructional design and technology team at an R1 institution redesigned faculty development to feel less like compliance training and more like a creative, story-driven experience. In this session, instructional designers and technologists will share how they transformed faculty development using story, play, and human-centered design to increase attendance, expand flexible participation options, and make technology and support services more approachable. This approach more than tripled average attendance while broadening access for faculty across campus. Presenters will showcase Course Mapping Camp, a self-paced, camping-themed experience where faculty build aligned course maps, and This Old Course, a renovation-themed series that helps instructors improve existing or inherited courses for accessibility, usability, alignment, and course organization. The session will also include an overview of additional offerings ranging from short, synchronous sessions to semester-long faculty communities. Attendees will leave with practical, low-cost, and scalable strategies for using narrative and play to make faculty development more engaging, memorable, and accessible at their own institutions.