Instructional Design - Week 3

I find myself frustrated this week that I do not have enough time to completely revamp my course right now! The ideas presented about types of assessment really make me want to dig deeper into how I evaluate the work of my students.

I found myself defending rubrics in the discussion, but also, defending tests and quizzes in my own mind. The readings really made me question the party line “tests are bad, only authentic assessment” that I had come to accept. Sometimes, there really is a place for assessment using tests and quizzes, and I am glad to have been exposed to Grant Wiggins' ideas about using tests in online learning. As a worked on form 6.3 and laid out possible assessments for the learning objectives, I found myself consciously looking at how often I had been assessing privately, and how often I had been doing so publicly (dropbox vs discussions for example). It was interesting to see my thinking when I first developed the course, in that I tried to balance the two without even knowing truly proper online course design.

Instructional Design - Week 2

It was really interesting for me to skim through my course and look at what I had students doing, and then really determine what the objectives and goals should be for each module. I found a lot of extraneous activities that I had put in different modules, and I will have to closely examine them to see if they truly help learners achieve the ultimate objectives, or if I used them as filler.

I also found it interesting that in the two articles I found about designing accelerated courses, they stress the importance of engagement, hands on and practical application, exactly the same things should apply to any course design! I took the stand in the discussion that abbreviated courses should be abbreviated in length only, not concepts and content. I don’t know if my opinion was particularly popular, but to me, no matter how long the course, I think the same concepts and content should be delivered. I don’t take an 8 week course because it’s “easier” I take it because it fits better in to my life. If I thought I would get less out of it, I probably would opt for the 16 week course.

Instructional Design - Week 1

As with every course, I learn more and more that I need to do to create the best learning experience for my students. This weeks readings focused on making learning student centered, and on approaching instructional design in an organized fashion. I know that my courses all need a redesign, but in this program I have been focusing on my historical fiction course, so that will continue to be my focus. Form 3 helped me to narrow in on what I think needs work in my course, so that if nothing else, I can focus on those areas. I absolutely need to look at each learning experience and make sure that I am providing the content, showing them how to use it, allowing them to practice, and then having them apply it in a “real-world” scenario.

Another take away this week was to develop learning guides as a way to organize myself and my students. I have previously offered a checklist to students of what they need to do in each module, but a focused learning guide will be so much more beneficial for all of us! I’m really excited to give these a try.