What five important concepts stood out to me as I read about Instructional Design? And, how will I incorporate them into my model?
Who Are the Learners? (discussion begins on page 154 in the textbook). This is central to a real classroom space and to a virtual classroom—and for me, this means more than what the names, ages, and experience levels of the students might be. There are a few reasons getting to know your students is important to designing and implementing a course. The textbook talks about knowing the demographics of your students when planning classes and then it talks about pre-testing students to see what they know about the subject of the class, to determine learning styles, and to see who might need extra help or extra challenges after the class is underway. You can only know so much before your course begins; the bulk of what we learn about our students happens after the course is underway and after the course has been designed. So this poses a problem: how to design your course with structure, so your students don’t get lost, but with enough flexibility to allow for adjustments when it is clear students need to be in a different place or be moving at a different pace than you have planned? I am not sure the UMT model works for this kind of flexibility, and it certainly poses problems for a subject like writing where students do not learn first, the parts of speech, then how to put a sentence together, then a paragraph, etc. So something along the lines of the hyper-content design model will be more useful.
Knowing your students also helps an instructor draw out what students already know in order for them to feel confident about moving into new territory because their existing knowledge and experiences are identified and acknowledged; it also helps them see each other as resources. I have had students write a diagnostic essay at the beginning of the class to see where they are in their writing abilities—but for an online class, I think there might be problems doing this, so I would use their first introductory writing about experience and expectations to help them/me identify their strengths and weakness as writers. I would want to have them get into the habit of observing their own learning and writing—to do metacognitive writing throughout the semester.
What is the Essential Content? (discussion begins on page 157 in the textbook). So the text suggests instructors think about content in terms of a hierarchy: “Starting with general goals, followed by more specific goals and objectives” and in this way “the nature of the structure of the content can be made to fall in place.” (157) I have my doubts about this when it comes to a writing course because writing is not a content course in the same way as say, Geometry or Chemistry (although I would argue those classes as well, are more than their content—they are about ways of thinking not just what is thought about). I can, however see, how thinking globally about what I want to happen in the class, can be aided by thinking hierarchically about the things that will lead to the writing I will ask students to do in and for the course. Writing is an activity—and we learn how to be better at it by doing more of it. It is not something students can learn out of a textbook, handbook, by knowing how to parse sentences (though this may come in handy later when they are revising sentences or trying to figure out why something doesn’t make sense), even by knowing the parts of speech. So for the class, the first and foremost thing is to sustain the activity in every guise possible. Online classes actually make this easier because most communication is done through writing—bringing students’ attention to this fact is important. So, one way of looking at this is that the sustained writing of the students becomes the main content of the class around which orbit the other readings, handbooks, mini grammar lessons, revisions, responses, etc.
Thinking About Models for Designing Classes (discussion begins on page 167) because I am one of those people who needs to see things in a broad sweep, this was very important for me to think about and is related to the question of content—this is one of the ways I understand how parts work together in the whole (when I wrote my dissertation, I put butcher paper up in our long hall way and taped my chapters to it—I could literally walk through my dissertation from beginning to end—and I could see how things related and where things needed to be moved around). So, the visualizing of a system, the way the textbook does on pages 168-170) was very helpful to me. I said earlier that the UMT way of thinking and organizing the class would probably not offer the kind of flexibility I foresee needing, nor fit the activities of writing a course, but the hyper-content model seems a good way to start thinking about the writing activities, their relationships to each other, and what sorts of things I would want the student-writers to be trying and identifying in their writing.
“The focus of the instruction shifts to visual presentation” (153). So, there is visualizing content and form for me as I design the class, but there is the importance of visual presentation of materials and information for the students. Because the interface is largely a screen, and because writing and reading are sometimes thought of as bereft of visual interest, it is very important for me to think about how I design what the students interact with on a day to day to basis—I don’t think there are easy answers for this—the book offers guidance about font size, contrast, color choice, but all those still need to be put together in a meaningful as well as interesting way. I will be mulling over Coal slurry ponds as I begin to post things to Coursesites and pull together & review old handouts.
What is not possible (page 175). The text quotes Peters:
Communication mediated through technical media remains mediated
communication and cannot replace an actual discussion, an actual
argument, the discourse of a group gathered at a particular location . . .
what takes place in a discussion between two or more people can only
be transmitted in part electronically . . .”
(155, from Learning and Teaching in Distance Education)
I was relieved to read this—it acknowledges the limitations of online classes, and frees me from trying to replicate everything from a real classroom space into an online environment. It doesn’t mean that distance and separation cannot be and should not be mitigated, but there is only so far I and the students will be able to go. What this also helped me think about are the things online classes allow which are more difficult to do in a real classroom space—for instance those discussions will be taking place in writing—the medium and subject of the class—so this is one space I need to focus on as I plan the course—what is possible given the media?
Why is the impact of instructional design so important to Distance Education?
It is possible to wing it, to temporize, to improvise in a real classroom space: no one did the reading on which your whole class activity rests? Draw on Plan B which might be anything form having them perform the reading aloud in class to doing what you had panned for the next week. Forgot the handouts on which the class activity rests? Have them interview each other, or write a description and story of something in their backpacks. These are decisions made in situ from information we glean form talking to students, observing their body language, seeing how much energy they have, thinking about where we are in the course of the week and semester, etc. All of this goes out the window in an online class—students want to be able to see the whole of the class—where they are headed--especially if they cannot see you. So, things need to be planned in advance and accessible, since you do not know when or where students will be accessing things. Obviously, a well planned class is a well planned class no matter if it is in a real space or online—but the design will be more immediately evident, I think, in an online class. A real classroom space is like beginning a journey with a tour group where there is well informed guide taking you through everything—you feel you can relax a bit and trust the guide to let you know where you are going, what is important about where you are going, and how long you have in each stop so you don’t miss the bus when it leaves for the next city. Online classes are more self-guided tours—you may have an excellent guidebook you can consult, you may even see others using the same guidebook—but there is no relaxing into the comfort of someone taking you around and taking care of things for you—you have to read ahead and know what is next, so you can book your hotels, your transportation, what you want to see and do out of all the possibilities.
Who Are the Learners? (discussion begins on page 154 in the textbook). This is central to a real classroom space and to a virtual classroom—and for me, this means more than what the names, ages, and experience levels of the students might be. There are a few reasons getting to know your students is important to designing and implementing a course. The textbook talks about knowing the demographics of your students when planning classes and then it talks about pre-testing students to see what they know about the subject of the class, to determine learning styles, and to see who might need extra help or extra challenges after the class is underway. You can only know so much before your course begins; the bulk of what we learn about our students happens after the course is underway and after the course has been designed. So this poses a problem: how to design your course with structure, so your students don’t get lost, but with enough flexibility to allow for adjustments when it is clear students need to be in a different place or be moving at a different pace than you have planned? I am not sure the UMT model works for this kind of flexibility, and it certainly poses problems for a subject like writing where students do not learn first, the parts of speech, then how to put a sentence together, then a paragraph, etc. So something along the lines of the hyper-content design model will be more useful.
Knowing your students also helps an instructor draw out what students already know in order for them to feel confident about moving into new territory because their existing knowledge and experiences are identified and acknowledged; it also helps them see each other as resources. I have had students write a diagnostic essay at the beginning of the class to see where they are in their writing abilities—but for an online class, I think there might be problems doing this, so I would use their first introductory writing about experience and expectations to help them/me identify their strengths and weakness as writers. I would want to have them get into the habit of observing their own learning and writing—to do metacognitive writing throughout the semester.
What is the Essential Content? (discussion begins on page 157 in the textbook). So the text suggests instructors think about content in terms of a hierarchy: “Starting with general goals, followed by more specific goals and objectives” and in this way “the nature of the structure of the content can be made to fall in place.” (157) I have my doubts about this when it comes to a writing course because writing is not a content course in the same way as say, Geometry or Chemistry (although I would argue those classes as well, are more than their content—they are about ways of thinking not just what is thought about). I can, however see, how thinking globally about what I want to happen in the class, can be aided by thinking hierarchically about the things that will lead to the writing I will ask students to do in and for the course. Writing is an activity—and we learn how to be better at it by doing more of it. It is not something students can learn out of a textbook, handbook, by knowing how to parse sentences (though this may come in handy later when they are revising sentences or trying to figure out why something doesn’t make sense), even by knowing the parts of speech. So for the class, the first and foremost thing is to sustain the activity in every guise possible. Online classes actually make this easier because most communication is done through writing—bringing students’ attention to this fact is important. So, one way of looking at this is that the sustained writing of the students becomes the main content of the class around which orbit the other readings, handbooks, mini grammar lessons, revisions, responses, etc.
Thinking About Models for Designing Classes (discussion begins on page 167) because I am one of those people who needs to see things in a broad sweep, this was very important for me to think about and is related to the question of content—this is one of the ways I understand how parts work together in the whole (when I wrote my dissertation, I put butcher paper up in our long hall way and taped my chapters to it—I could literally walk through my dissertation from beginning to end—and I could see how things related and where things needed to be moved around). So, the visualizing of a system, the way the textbook does on pages 168-170) was very helpful to me. I said earlier that the UMT way of thinking and organizing the class would probably not offer the kind of flexibility I foresee needing, nor fit the activities of writing a course, but the hyper-content model seems a good way to start thinking about the writing activities, their relationships to each other, and what sorts of things I would want the student-writers to be trying and identifying in their writing.
“The focus of the instruction shifts to visual presentation” (153). So, there is visualizing content and form for me as I design the class, but there is the importance of visual presentation of materials and information for the students. Because the interface is largely a screen, and because writing and reading are sometimes thought of as bereft of visual interest, it is very important for me to think about how I design what the students interact with on a day to day to basis—I don’t think there are easy answers for this—the book offers guidance about font size, contrast, color choice, but all those still need to be put together in a meaningful as well as interesting way. I will be mulling over Coal slurry ponds as I begin to post things to Coursesites and pull together & review old handouts.
What is not possible (page 175). The text quotes Peters:
Communication mediated through technical media remains mediated
communication and cannot replace an actual discussion, an actual
argument, the discourse of a group gathered at a particular location . . .
what takes place in a discussion between two or more people can only
be transmitted in part electronically . . .”
(155, from Learning and Teaching in Distance Education)
I was relieved to read this—it acknowledges the limitations of online classes, and frees me from trying to replicate everything from a real classroom space into an online environment. It doesn’t mean that distance and separation cannot be and should not be mitigated, but there is only so far I and the students will be able to go. What this also helped me think about are the things online classes allow which are more difficult to do in a real classroom space—for instance those discussions will be taking place in writing—the medium and subject of the class—so this is one space I need to focus on as I plan the course—what is possible given the media?
Why is the impact of instructional design so important to Distance Education?
It is possible to wing it, to temporize, to improvise in a real classroom space: no one did the reading on which your whole class activity rests? Draw on Plan B which might be anything form having them perform the reading aloud in class to doing what you had panned for the next week. Forgot the handouts on which the class activity rests? Have them interview each other, or write a description and story of something in their backpacks. These are decisions made in situ from information we glean form talking to students, observing their body language, seeing how much energy they have, thinking about where we are in the course of the week and semester, etc. All of this goes out the window in an online class—students want to be able to see the whole of the class—where they are headed--especially if they cannot see you. So, things need to be planned in advance and accessible, since you do not know when or where students will be accessing things. Obviously, a well planned class is a well planned class no matter if it is in a real space or online—but the design will be more immediately evident, I think, in an online class. A real classroom space is like beginning a journey with a tour group where there is well informed guide taking you through everything—you feel you can relax a bit and trust the guide to let you know where you are going, what is important about where you are going, and how long you have in each stop so you don’t miss the bus when it leaves for the next city. Online classes are more self-guided tours—you may have an excellent guidebook you can consult, you may even see others using the same guidebook—but there is no relaxing into the comfort of someone taking you around and taking care of things for you—you have to read ahead and know what is next, so you can book your hotels, your transportation, what you want to see and do out of all the possibilities.