Teaching and curriculum doctoral student wins national AECT design competition
Md Mamunur Rashid, a PhD student in the teaching and curriculum program at the Warner School of Education and Human Development, was named a winner of the Association for Educational Communications & Technology (AECT) Design and Development Competition at the 2025 AECT International Convention, sponsored by North Atlantic Treaty Organization Allied Command Transformation (NATO ACT).
The annual AECT Design and Development Competition challenges graduate student teams to tackle realistic instructional design problems. This year’s challenge centered on a fictitious global consulting firm, “Decisions Elevated,” seeking to create a new learning management system (LMS) for nonprofit organizations. The proposed LMS needed to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize learning experiences, integrate real-world workplace scenarios, and provide continuous skill assessments to ensure training remains relevant and adaptable for all nonprofit personnel.
Rashid and his teammate, Ibrahim Akdilek, an EdD student at Texas Tech University, earned top honors for their project, RESPOND: A Crisis-Ready, AI-Augmented LMS for Nonprofits.
“This experience has been incredibly rewarding, and I am thrilled that our work was recognized among graduate student teams—especially in a competition sponsored by NATO ACT,” says Rashid, who is also pursuing an advanced certificate in online teaching at Warner.
Rashid’s doctoral research focuses on the use of multimodal AI for teaching and learning. His experiences at the Warner School and his research assistantship at the (LiDA Center) informed several components of the RESPOND project.
The is a professional association of educators, instructional designers, and business professionals dedicated to advancing educational technology research and practice to enhance teaching and learning worldwide.