Development of skills and knowledge related to the systematic design of instruction. Emphasis is placed on content analysis, instructional strategies, and formative evaluation.

Reflection:

This was a troublesome course for me.  I have built workshops and seminars, conducted interviews and written surveys and assessment tools, but I have never designed a single lesson, much less an entire course.  There are similarities between courses/lessons and workshops/seminars, but there are also very big differences. The biggest difference I experienced was the formality of structure and content of a course as contrasted to the informality and casual style of a workshop.  As with each of my courses in this program, it was exciting to come to understand the process of instructional design.

The most effective tool for me in this course was building the instructional strategy. This process enabled me to clearly define what I was planning to convey and how it would be conveyed. This sounded to me like an obvious element of the instructional design process, but it was a significant challenge to discipline myself to identify component by component how the material would be presented.

I enjoyed the structure of this course, building a final project through various stages of development.  Each section I completed offered more clarity to what I was trying to achieve and seemed to demystify the overall process. The practice of creating the assessments before the course was complete made excellent sense to me.  As a colleague of mine and I discussed the topic for course assessments over lunch she agreed with me that, left to the last, assessments are often overlooked or ignored.  As challenging as it may be to create an assessment instrument prior to the completion of a course design, I agree with the strategy because the process of doing so clarifies the course objectives, and holds the designer to deliver the material that is being advertised.

I was pleased with my completed design and had good success delivering it to my audience. This course was challenging for me and it was satisfying to have such good feedback from my audience about the course I had designed.

Artifacts and Standards:

Instructional Design Strategy | IIA | IIB | IID
Assessment Document | IVA | IVB | IVC
Main Project | IIA | IIB | IID
Evaluation Report | VC