Dr. Garbrick has over 25 years in Education and Technology fields. She is the Director of the Office of Learning Design, College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), Penn State at the University Park campus, and also an Adjunct Professor for the College of IST at Penn State.
In her role as a director since 2010, Dr. Garbrick has managed the design and development of over 100 courses for a number of award-winning online programs. She works on improving teaching and learning in distance, blended, resident, graduate, and undergraduate courses within the College of IST. As the director of Learning Design, she manages a team of six full-time employees and up to 12 part-time employees including student employees. Previously, she was a Senior Instructional Designer and eLearning Coordinator with the Office of Learning Initiatives. She was also worked in the role of an Instructional Designer and eLearning Coordinator with the IST Solutions Institute where she designed and developed courses for corporate partners including Lockheed Martin as well as for the IST undergraduate program. She started in IST in 2002. Prior to her work at IST, she was an Instructional Designer with the Penn State Smeal College of Business R.I.I.T. (Research, Instruction, and Information Technology) Group. She was also a Microcomputer Systems Consultant with the R.I.I.T. Group within Smeal College and worked on solving hardware, OS, software, web, database, and network issues, wearing many "hats" to troubleshoot and solve technical issues.
As an Adjunct Professor, Dr. Garbrick has taught since 2005: IST 110S, IST 110, and IST 111 both online via World Campus and also in Resident Instruction (RI) at University Park. She also taught IST 302 which is IT Project Management. IST 110S is a small seminar class for incoming first-year students while IST 110 is a larger general education course for non-IST majors. She often pilots Instructional Technology tools to research processes and create best practices.
Dr. Garbrick earned a B.S. in Education from Penn State, an M.Ed. in Instructional Systems from Penn State, and a Ph.D. in Learning, Design, and Technology from Penn State. Her dissertation and research focused on improving student engagement in online asynchronous discussion forums measured by quantity, quality, survey, and Social Network Analysis (SNA). Her research interests include online teaching and learning tools specifically LMS tools, mobile learning, concept maps, and Canvas UX. She has published research studies and presented at national and international conferences about her work. She also serves on various University-wide teaching, learning, technology, and online education committees including steering committees.
Lee, M., Clariana, R., & Garbrick, A. (2021). Knowledge Convergence in Collaborative Concept Mapping. Annual proceedings of selected research and development papers presented online and onsite during the Forty‑Fourth Annual Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) (Volumes 1–2) (ED 617428). ERIC. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED617428.pdf#page=119
Gregg, A., Reid, R., Aldemir, T., Gray, J., Frederick, M., & Garbrick, A. (2020). Think-Aloud Observations to Improve Online Course Design: A Case Example and “How-to” Guide. In Chapter 15 of Schmidt, M., Tawfik, A. A., Jahnke, I., & Earnshaw, Y. (Eds.) LX Design-in-Use. Learner and User Experience Research: An Introduction for the Field of Learning Design & Technology. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/ux/15_think_aloud_obser
Gregg, A., Reid, R., Aldemir, T., Garbrick, A., Frederick, M., & Gray, J. (2018). Improving online course design with think-aloud observations: A “how-to” guide for instructional designers for conducting UX testing. Journal of Applied Instructional Design, 7(2) 17–26.
Wang, N., Yeh, M., Gregg, A., Zhu, C., Garbrick, A., and Peck, K. (2017) Beyond academic grade dashboard: Integrating performance visualization to increase peer support: a work in-progress paper. 7th Annual International Conference on Education & e-Learning Conference 2017. 25 - 26 Sep 2017. (doi:10.5176/2251-1814_EeL17.36). https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/418648/
Gregg, A., Reid, R., Garbrick, A., Williams, V., & Aldemir, T. (2017). Canvas UX Think Aloud Observations Report. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University. https://sites.psu.edu/canvasux/files/2018/03/CanvasUXThinkAloudObservations_FinalReport-_final_with-suggested-citation-22zsyxz.pdf
Garbrick, A. (2017). PhD Dissertation: Factors Influencing Student Engagement in an Online Asynchronous Discussion Forum Measured by Quantity, Quality, Survey, and Social Network Analysis. https://etda.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/14920alh245
Reid, R., Gregg, A., Williams, V. & Garbrick, A. (2016). Asking Students What They Think: Student User Experience (UX) Research Studies to Inform Online Course Design. In Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning (pp. 451-456). Washington, DC, United States: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/173971/.
Garbrick, A. & Clariana, R. (2015). The influence of email notifications in asynchronous discussion on interaction patterns using social network analysis. In Proceedings of Global Learn Berlin 2015: Global Conference on Learning and Technology (pp. 622-626). Berlin, Germany: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/p/150912.
Garbrick, A. & Clariana, R. (2015). How Notifications Influence Participants in Asynchronous Discussion Forums: A Case Study. In Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (pp. 777-784). Kona, Hawaii, United States: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved August 5, 2025 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/152093/.
Kim, K., Clariana, R., & Garbrick, A. (2013). The Effect of Computer-Supported Independent and Interdependent Collaboration on Information Sharing. In Rummel, N., Kapur, M., Nathan, M., & Puntambekar, S. (Eds.), To See the World and a Grain of Sand: Learning across Levels of Space, Time, and Scale: CSCL 2013 Conference Proceedings Volume 2 — Short Papers, Panels, Posters, Demos & Community Events (pp. 287-288). Madison, WI: International Society of the Learning Sciences. https://repository.isls.org//handle/1/1863
