Farewell, EDU 658

This post is part of an assignment for Instructional Design: Application. The idea is to reflect upon this whirlwind of a summer session addressing some questions posed by the instructor. Since this course had me thinking about backwards design, I’ll begin by telling you that I created a blueprint for a course I am designing on teaching faculty to teach online. After that I developed two modules, a syllabus, and reviewed the work of my classmates. Now I’ll tell you how those tasks were accomplished.

THE BLUEPRINT

 

image credit: http://tinyurl.com/nk52uhg

The blueprint served as a planning document for designing and developing my course. It was probably one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I’m one of those people who when asked to create an outline for my papers, would write the paper then create the outline. It’s very hard for me to create the road map, then use it to travel when I really just want to forge ahead and create the map of the path I took! This being said, my products were fairly closely aligned to my blueprint. I found myself adding extra exercises and other activities to my modules, that weren’t in my blueprint in order to clarify a task or to help with transitions. This is the way I’m used to designing. I find that I like to think about the structure of the course, kind of like the frame of the house, before I begin designing, but after that I jump right in creating content, like decorating the house without a detailed plan. What works for me, luckily, is that our wonderful LMS allows me to easily move content around until I’m happy with its final resting place.

THE MODULES

As part of the assignments, we created an orientation module which (as you guessed) oriented students to the course including the layout, design, and expectations. This module included the syllabus and a meet and greet for the students to get to know one another and to form a sense of community. The second module was a content module – in my case how to define, construct, and use a Professional Learning Network. In the creation of these modules I didn’t have the opportunity to play with any new technologies, but I did get to develop activities which used Google Forms and Padlet – two of my favorite tools. I’m looking forward to finishing with the development of this course in the next few weeks and piloting it late this fall.

LESSONS LEARNED

  

image credit: http://tinyurl.com/nfd2w6m  

•  I will edit, edit, and edit some more until the assignment is due. After I turn it in, I will edit some more. This will be a challenge when the course goes “live” and I have to save my edits for the next time it’s offered.
• A course will never be 100% ready to go and that has to be okay.
• Feedback from colleagues is extremely helpful. This isn’t something I just learned, but something I came to consciously appreciate again.
• Gone are the days I complete an assignment just for the grade. If I don’t see the value of an assignment in its current state, I’m not afraid to start a conversation with the instructor about ways to modify it to meet my needs. This didn’t happen in this course, but I’ve had discussions with classmates from this course about other experiences they have had and those solidified my commitment never to do “busy work” again!
•  There are many course design frameworks and guidelines. Some work better than others depending on many factors including time frame, content, and purpose. All should remain in the toolbox and be ready to be pulled out at a moment’s notice.
• Ask to reuse or repurpose content. And don’t forget to credit the source.
• If I did it all again, what would I do differently? I’ve already had many discussions with colleagues and our instructor so this isn’t news to them, but I would take this course again only if it was the full semester. The mini-term timeframe wasn’t conducive to planning an entire course, developing content, reflecting on others’ work, and editing, editing, editing.