Megan Kappel is an instructional designer with the University of Pittsburgh Center for Excellence in Digital Education (Pitt EDGE), where she partners with faculty to develop engaging online courses for graduate and professional programs. Her professional interests include innovative learning activities such as gamification and story-based learning, accessibility and inclusion, learning motivation theory, ID collaboration models, and Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT). She also co-facilitates Pitt’s ID Partners network with Lex Drozd and Maria Hahn.
Kappel spent nine years teaching with Pitt’s Department of English. During that time, she launched two new composition courses, Writing Proposals for Business and History & Ethics of Advertising & Public Relations, and actively participated in curriculum and pedagogy committees and initiatives. She has also taught in Point Park University’s Cinema Arts and core curriculum programs and Robert Morris University’s Communication Skills Program and developed and taught over a dozen special topics courses in film, television and literature through Pitt’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
In academic administration, she served as assistant dean of Undergraduate Studies for the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences and the College of General Studies and as director of the Public & Professional Writing Program. As PPW Director, she spearheaded the 2021 Digital Media Professions Week, which was included in the Dietrich School Board of Visitors annual showcase.
- Graduate Certificate, Instructional Design, University of Wisconsin-Stout
- MFA in Screenwriting, Hollins University
- BA in English with a Creative Writing Concentration, Allegheny College
Education & Training
- Provost’s Award for Diversity in the Curriculum, University of Pittsburgh, 2022
