Introduction

 

 

What Is Instructional Design & Delivery?

Instructional design is a systematic approach to course development that ensures that specific learning goals are accomplished. It is an iterative process that requires ongoing evaluation and feedback.

 

Instructional delivery refers to how instructors present instructional material to learners, including instructor methods, approaches and strategies, as well as the media used, traditional or innovative, as a means of delivery. 

 

 

Research, Principles & Trends.

This interactive white paper serves as a resource for new and replacement community college instructors in the business and computer science disciplines.  This paper focuses on the research, principles and trends in instructional design and delivery. 

 

The Web links presented throughout this paper will expose you to the most pertinent and timely research and resources now emerging in instructional design and delivery.  The hope is that these links will be immediately helpful to you in your quest to design, develop, and deliver engaging and innovative instruction to your classroom, division, and college. 

 

The Web is a wonderful and powerful tool for gathering resources and sharing ideas.  The links presented here have been collected from industry specialists and educators like you.  It is by no means a complete collection of the wonderful concepts and applications available on the Web.  Fortunately, and unfortunately, the Web offers such a vast amount to support material and research examples, daily, and to be able to include every item that addresses our challenges and concerns would be a paper that could never be complete.

 

However, please think of this paper as “a living document” for you to add to as you grow in your own instructional design, development and delivery strategies and methodologies both on-site in your traditional classrooms and on-line in your virtual environments. 

 

 

Where Do I Begin?

This interactive white paper is intended to serve as both a resource paper and tool-kit.  We recommend that you read the paper the first time, through to its entirety.  Then, go back and explore each of the links at your leisure and as appropriate for your instructional needs. 

 

As you proceed through this paper, take the time to think about what you believe with respect to how people learn and how you can facilitate the learning through your own instructional design approaches and delivery techniques.  The bulleted questions posed throughout the paper can be thought of as your homework assignments and can be used to facilitate a deeper level of thought. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instructional Design Models

 

 

Models, like myths and metaphors, help us to make sense of our world. Whether it is derived from whim or from serious research, a model offers its user a means of comprehending an otherwise incomprehensible problem. An instructional design model gives structure and meaning to an instructional design problem, enabling the would-be designer to negotiate her design task with a semblance of conscious understanding. Models help us to visualize the problem, to break it down into discrete, manageable units.

 

The value of a specific model is determined within the context of use. Like any other instrument, a model assumes a specific intention of its user. A model should be judged by how it mediates the designer's intention, how well it can share a work load, and how effectively it shifts focus away from itself toward the object of the design activity.

 

Models, like other tools, shape the consciousness of those who use them. The tool molds the wielder who molds the tool, ad infinitum. Our models frame the reality we impose on the world and the experience that is forged out of their use brings us to higher levels of understanding about the design problem, but only within the framework of the specific models we adopt.  Martin Ryder, University of Colorado at Denver School of Education.

 

 

The Field of Instructional Design is in a State of Rapid Change. This link presents a vast assortment of papers contributed by educators and learning theorists.  Use this link when mapping out your own instructional design model carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/idmodels.html. 

 

• What are some of the components of your instructional design model that were present here?

• What components discovered at this site will you incorporate in your own instructional design model? 

 

Putting Theory Into Practice.  This database contains brief summaries of 50 major theories of learning and instruction. These theories can also be accessed by learning domains and concepts tip.psychology.org/.

 

• What learning theory do you subscribe to?

 

 

Instructional Design Principles

 

 

How Does Your Instruction Rate?  The 5 star rating scale consists of first principles of instruction derived from a careful analysis of existing instructional design theories and research on instruction www.id2.usu.edu/.

 

Check out “First Principles of Instruction” www.id2.usu.edu/Papers/5FirstPrinciples.PDF and the 5 star instructional design rating system www.id2.usu.edu/5Star/FiveStarRating.PDF.  Another great resource, “Principles of Instructional Design and Adult Learning,” can be found at www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/Learning/instructionaldesign/.

 

• Does your instruction meet the 5 star design rating? 

 

For more resources by M. David Merrill (author of “First Principles of Instruction” and “Does Your Instruction Meet the 5 Star Design Rating?” go to www.id2.usu.edu/Papers/Contents.html.

 

 

To Educate and Entertain.  Museum sites have the responsibility to both educate and entertain those who visit.  For good or for bad, this is true of news and educational sites.  The following Websites are great resources for instructional inspiration and innovation in presenting and delivering information.  They are well worth taking time to review. 

 

1.    Find education headlines, interactive resources and more from MSNBC www.msnbc.com/news/learning_Front.asp.

 

2. Find an expansive collection of features, news and resources for teachers, as well as links to schools and universities around the world www.education-world.com/.

 

3. Check out “Creating an Course Syllabus” at ivc-dl2.ivc.cc.ca.us/besac/tnt/assessment.html (Project by: Jill Frank, Asilomar-Instructional Design Group, Group facilitator: Peg Saragina).

 

4.    Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators is a categorized list of sites useful for enhancing curriculum and professional growth. It is updated often to include the best sites for teaching and learning school.discovery.com/schrockguide/index.html.

 

5.    The goal of the TLT Teaching, Learning and Technology Group is to help educational institutions improve teaching and learning by making more thoughtful use of information technology.  TLT offers tools, information, training, and consulting that accelerate educational improvement while also helping to control the costs and ease the stresses of change.  TLT works mainly with institutions of higher education but schools, corporate training programs, hospitals, governmental agencies and others have also make use of their resources www.tltgroup.org/.

 

6.    Find free teaching resources from Discovery.com school.discovery.com   school.discovery.com/schrockguide/index.html.

 

7. Find more teaching resources from National Geographic www.nationalgeographic.com/education/.

 

8. Find program guides, lesson plans, fact sheets, and nature puzzles from the nonprofit TV network Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) www.pbs.org/.

 

9. Discovery's offshoot, The Learning Channel, invites viewers to expand their minds through television. View profiles of upcoming specials, the schedule, and the FAQ tlc.discovery.com/.

 

10. The Smithsonian Institution is composed of sixteen museums and galleries, the National Zoo, and numerous research facilities in the United States and abroad.  Check out the Education & Outreach and The Virtual Smithsonian links  www.si.edu/.

 

11.The Learning to Learn site is for learners, teachers, and researchers.  Learning to Learn is a course, a resource, and a source of knowledge about learning, how it can be developed in children and adults, and how it differs among learners, especially those with learning disabilities snow.utoronto.ca/Learn2/resources.html. 

 

12. AOL@ School is a education portal.  We highly recommend the Teacher’s Professional Development section school.aol.com/teachers/tch_development.adp.  Check out ASCD’s Tutorial section.  These short multimedia lessons are on a variety of topics including Standards, Learning Styles, School Safety, Constructivism and much more.school.aol.com/teachers/tch_frame_development_js.html?www.ascd.org/frametutorials.html.

 

The Web offers a new and innovative platform for designing, developing and delivering courseware; however, it does take planning in order to be successful in the delivery and to ensure student success.  A great exploration exercise is to go to www.msn.com or www.yahoo.com (or your favorite search engine) and search for “instructional principles,” “instructional design models,” or “instructional design for on-line learning.”  (Use the double quotes so the search engine will search for the entire string of words.  If you don’t include the quotes the each word will be search for separately.)  Use other search strings as well.  Periodically searching the Web for the latest and greatest articles, resources and sites devoted to any topic that interests you is a good habit to have.  

 

 

New Instructional Design & Delivery Paradigms

 

 

Web Communities.  The next sites are example of Website communities.  These sites could have been used as models for the development of the TNT Website that supports the presentation of this Interactive White Paper.  Community sites provide on-line resources, connect people and institutions to learning, harnessing information technology and multimedia, and remove barriers to learning. 

 

The Illinois Online Network (ION) says it well in its Mission Statement:

 

The primary mission of the Illinois Online Network is to promote the effective use of networked information technologies to enhance traditional classroom instruction, and to build the foundation for developing, delivering, and supporting courses delivered in a completely online format.

 

1.    The Illinois Online Network (ION) is a collaboration of all forty-eight community colleges and the University of Illinois working together to advance utilization of Internet-based instruction and service throughout the state of Illinois.  Check out illinois.online.uillinois.edu/ and especially the resource section illinois.online.uillinois.edu/IONresources/index.html.

 

2. The California Virtual Campus Professional Development Center site is a joint project of El Camino and Santa Monica Colleges and was created under the auspices of the Chancellor's Office for the California Community Colleges. The CVC catalog of distance-education programs and courses continues the work of its predecessor - the California Virtual University Website - in making information available about distance-learning opportunities at California institutions of higher education. The CVC Professional Development Center gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the University of California in establishing the CVC catalog pdc.cvc.edu/training/.

 

The following item came from this Tips & Trick area of the CVC site: 

 

Have student become one-page experts.  You’ve heard of one-minute managers?  Have your students become one-page experts.  Suggest they pick a topic and have them create a page of information including appropriate links.  You may structure a format that is suitable for your specific discipline.

 

This learner activity is a “mini-version” of the Instructional Design Model present in and advocated by this Interactive White Paper!

 

 

Goals, Motivation & Learner Retention

 

 

Thomas A. Angelo wrote an article (AAHE Bulletin, May 1999) where its title expresses the most critical and challenging task of business educators today, that is, “Doing Assessment As If Learning Matters Most” www.aahe.org/bulletin/angelomay99.htm.

 

 

Goals.  Angelo writes, Building shared motivation: Collectively identify goals worth working toward and problems worth solving.  Most of us are more productive when we’re working toward clear, personally meaningful, reasonable goals. While students and faculty members typically have goals, they rarely can articulate what these goals are, rarely know how well these goals match their peers’ goals, and rarely focus on learning. Faculty goals tend to focus on what they will teach, rather than what students will learn; student goals often focus on "getting through."

 

Goals are not always sufficient to motivate us to learn. As Peter Ewell noted in his December 1997 AAHE Bulletin article "Organizing for Learning," he states, Maximum learning tends to occur when people are confronted with specific, identifiable problems that they want to solve and that are within their capacity to do so.

 

• At the beginning of a school year, what are your goals for the class?
• Have the goals of the students changed over the years?

 

 

Motivation.  Learners and instructors have an inherent responsibility to be motivated and offer motivation.  As well, the instructional design of any courseware must be motivational.  Ask yourself, “What motivates learners?”  “What impact does an instructor have on motivation?”  “How is motivation affected in virtual ‘e-learning’ settings vs. traditional physical classrooms?”

 

The “Teaching College College Courses Online vs. Face-to-Face” www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3407.cfm article will give you an idea of the issues and experiences most often encountered by online instructors. 

 

 

What Motivates Adult Learners?  Typical learner motivations include a requirement for competence, degree or certification, an expected or realized promotion, job enrichment, a need to maintain current skills or learn new ones, a need to adapt to job changes, or the need to learn in order to comply with company directives.

To motivate students, especially in learning technical or tedious material, and even dull material, the learner must be given the opportunity to achieve some goal that satisfies two conditions:

 

1. The student must have a real interest in the goal.
2. The uninteresting or difficult information must be "intrinsically" related to the goal; in order to achieve the goal, one sometimes must use this uninteresting/challenging information.

 

 

What Do Adult Learners Bring to the Learning Environment?  Instructors must acknowledge the wealth of experiences that adult learners bring to the classroom (traditional or virtual). These adults should be treated as equals in experience and knowledge and allowed to voice their opinions freely (respectfully) in class.  Adults bring varying qualities and quantities of the following characteristics to both traditional and virtual classroom settings:

 

1. Goal-oriented
2. Self-directed
3. Relevancy-oriented
4. Practical knowledge oriented
5. Need for Feedback

 

Adults have accumulated a foundation of life experiences and knowledge that may include previous education, work-related activities, family responsibilities, community support, and sport and recreation ventures.  Learners need to connect continued education to their knowledge base and experience base. As well, through life experiences, adults possess analytical skills to derive inferences such as: "What old problem is this new problem like?"

 

 

What Do Adults Hope to Achieve from Learning?  Learners tend to have precisely defined achievement expectations before taking a course.  Factors that influence expectations in adult learning include:

 

1. Cognitive interest in the subject or learning for learning sake
2. Personal advancement as a result of learning
3. Work-related learning experiences
4. Social or community learning experiences
5. Social relationships - meeting people with the same interests
6. Need for change or stimulation

 

 

What Do Learners Expect from E-Learning?  This is where expectations vary tremendously.  For the purposes of this paper we have defined three modalities - or platforms - of learning.  These are instructor-led traditional classroom, instructor-led virtual classroom (synchronous e-learning) and self-paced Web-based (asynchronous e-learning).  Blended learning is where the best of each modality is mixed and matched to create the most interactive, engaging, and most motivational learning experience. 

 

If you ask a group of students, “What is the [BIC1] definition of e-learning?” your answers are likely to be as varied and unique as the people you are asking.  As a result, learners have as many varied expectations as to what e-learning looks like, what its educational delivery capabilities are, or what learners should expect from it.    

 

 

How Do Instructors Motivate E-Learners? In traditional classrooms, students generally find out what is expected of them on the first day of class.  In virtual classrooms, motivating learners begins before a class ever begins.  Before a course starts, each instructor should set clear expectations for what is required from the learner.  Post to the learners (in a resource center or discussion board) what they are expected to learn from taking this course. Alsol, explain what tools will be used for interaction with the instructor and other learners.  Define for the learner, or have learners create, guidelines to following when interacting.  This “sets a tone” for all communication and collaboration efforts.  Finally, but even more importantly, ask learners what their goals are for taking this course and how they relate to their future professional and/or personal goals. Learner goals can be best realized by allowing students to choose projects that reflect their own interests.

 

 

Instructor-led Live Learning.  Live virtual classrooms come with the interface facilities and tools such as video for the learner to see the instructor, voice-over IP for communication to instructor and all learners, whiteboards, shared applications, Web connectivity, break-out rooms for collaboration, public and private chat, test facilities and impromptu surveys.  Instructors motivate students with a serendipitous mix of these tools and by asking yes/no questions and open-ended questions throughout the course.  Students can ask questions during lectures and activities during class by raising their virtual hands or ask outside class-time via e-mail. 

 

 

Self-paced Web-based Learning.  A few of the strategies that greatly influenced learner success in self-paced formats include:

 

1. Define Learner & Instructor Expectations.  Courses that open prior to their official start date, allowing learners to study the syllabus.  Instructor expectations are then known right from the start.  Learners can be invited to state their own goals and expectations for taking the course. 

 

2. Access to a Course Orientation.  If available learners should be encouraged to complete a sample course tutorial.  Materials can be published on how learners should post to the course-rooms.  A first unit can end with a simple, “Do you have any questions so far?” breaking the ice for a number of learners new to the virtual classroom. 

 

3. Self-Paced with a “Push.”  Although the course is self-paced, the instructors can “gently” move learners along with e-mails of encouragement, keeping learners on schedule.

 

4. Instructor Feedback.  Instructor feedback to learner discussion board posts that is both encouraging and insightful, and always timely. 

 

5. Learner & Instructor Interactions.  The rules of interaction should be established in the beginning of the course.  This set the tone as to how learners would interact with one another and with the instructors.

 

Collectively, the techniques implemented in both live virtual learning and self-paced Web-based learning enable a highly interactive educational setting.