OLTD 512- Instructional Design
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May/Jun 2017
Evidence of Learning: Social Studies 9 Unit Design Project
Learning Outcomes Demonstrated:
- Be familiar with common terms, definitions and elements related to Instructional Design.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the purpose of design and demonstrate competency with design.
- Plan learning opportunities most suitable to particular learning environments.
- Use foundations of educational theory to develop and design learning activities and assessments.
- Develop skills to optimize learning experiences.
- Analyse resources for their purpose in engaging and supporting learning (especially free and/or open educational resources).
- Develop practical and technical skills in all phases of concept, development, design, implementation, etc.
- Develop skills to optimize learning experiences through personalization.
- Be familiar with common terms, definitions and elements related to Instructional Design.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the purpose of design and demonstrate competency with design.
- Plan learning opportunities most suitable to particular learning environments.
- Use foundations of educational theory to develop and design learning activities and assessments.
- Develop skills to optimize learning experiences.
- Analyse resources for their purpose in engaging and supporting learning (especially free and/or open educational resources).
- Develop practical and technical skills in all phases of concept, development, design, implementation, etc.
- Develop skills to optimize learning experiences through personalization.
A detailed copy of the unit can be found HERE.
Reflection to Support Evidence:
One of the most fundamental beliefs in my teaching philosophy is that learning needs to be authentic. I feel strongly that if the assignments feel like a waste of time or busywork to the learner, then they will disengage and learning will be superficial at best. For this reason, the Design Project in OLTD 512 has been rich and engaging, as well as a challenging learning experience. I also had the opportunity to collaborate with Emily Kobetitch, which enriched the learning further, as knowledge is often best constructed socially.
As an online teacher who uses BC Learning Network courses for the majority of my teaching (with adaptations - see my 502 evidence of learning for an example), I actually don’t spend as much time designing units as I did when I was still working in the face to face classroom. I find designing for online to be a challenging blend of planning for personalization in the face of unknown differences, blending flexibility with structure, engaging learners at a distance, and, perhaps the most difficult element for me, finding valuable resources that are free or open. These resources are often engaging and offer exciting visuals, interaction, and novelty to the learning done by online students, who can often feel isolated or disengaged when working online with a screen.
Finding a topic was easy. Emily and I both feel strongly about the importance of teaching this topic with depth and sensitivity. It is important that all Canadians have an understanding of the lasting impacts of Colonialism on indigenous Canadians. We chose to use the Understanding by Design template because it fits well with our credo and our personalities.
The collaborative process was what made this as valuable as it was. I work in isolation a lot; after all, I’m an online teacher. Using online synchronous and asynchronous tools allowed us to jointly build a unit, with constant reflection and discussion of which tools and assignments would best serve our learners. Having two minds to put towards finding and vetting online resources has resulted in a richer and more interesting unit than I would have made on my own, and I was able to learn a lot about unit design and lesson sequencing as we went. It helped to be able to analyze the content and how it might work during implementation as we progressed, each of us bringing different experiences and strengths to the process. As the Connectivists espouse, we're all nodes in an information net, and expanding our networks increases our potential learning.
In conclusion, I’m extremely pleased with how the unit developed, and I intend to build it into Moodle (with an emphasis on increasing collaborative learning for my asynchronous students) over the summer holidays, so I can begin implementation with my students in September.
As an online teacher who uses BC Learning Network courses for the majority of my teaching (with adaptations - see my 502 evidence of learning for an example), I actually don’t spend as much time designing units as I did when I was still working in the face to face classroom. I find designing for online to be a challenging blend of planning for personalization in the face of unknown differences, blending flexibility with structure, engaging learners at a distance, and, perhaps the most difficult element for me, finding valuable resources that are free or open. These resources are often engaging and offer exciting visuals, interaction, and novelty to the learning done by online students, who can often feel isolated or disengaged when working online with a screen.
Finding a topic was easy. Emily and I both feel strongly about the importance of teaching this topic with depth and sensitivity. It is important that all Canadians have an understanding of the lasting impacts of Colonialism on indigenous Canadians. We chose to use the Understanding by Design template because it fits well with our credo and our personalities.
The collaborative process was what made this as valuable as it was. I work in isolation a lot; after all, I’m an online teacher. Using online synchronous and asynchronous tools allowed us to jointly build a unit, with constant reflection and discussion of which tools and assignments would best serve our learners. Having two minds to put towards finding and vetting online resources has resulted in a richer and more interesting unit than I would have made on my own, and I was able to learn a lot about unit design and lesson sequencing as we went. It helped to be able to analyze the content and how it might work during implementation as we progressed, each of us bringing different experiences and strengths to the process. As the Connectivists espouse, we're all nodes in an information net, and expanding our networks increases our potential learning.
In conclusion, I’m extremely pleased with how the unit developed, and I intend to build it into Moodle (with an emphasis on increasing collaborative learning for my asynchronous students) over the summer holidays, so I can begin implementation with my students in September.
Evidence of Learning: Peer Review
Learning Outcomes Demonstrated:
- Be familiar with common terms, definitions and elements related to Instructional Design.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the purpose of design and demonstrate competency with design.
- Plan (suggest) learning opportunities most suitable to particular learning environments.
- Analyse resources for their purpose in engaging and supporting learning (especially free and/or open educational resources).
- Be familiar with common terms, definitions and elements related to Instructional Design.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the purpose of design and demonstrate competency with design.
- Plan (suggest) learning opportunities most suitable to particular learning environments.
- Analyse resources for their purpose in engaging and supporting learning (especially free and/or open educational resources).
Reflection to Support Evidence
This assignment exposed me to the instructional and design ideas of different teachers, as well as the templates that these different professionals used, and I learned a lot from this exposure. As teachers know, you have to have a deep understanding of a topic to be able to teach and assess it, and this assignment had me flexing my "teaching" muscles and analyzing and assessing instructional designs in a way that complemented my own design process. Interestingly, we all chose to use Understanding by Design, versus one of the other design templates that we learned about during 512. I wonder if this reflects the cohesiveness of our cohort, or something substantially more appealing about starting with the learning outcomes and working your way back to the students, puzzling out what will work best for learning.
I adore the challenge of instructional design. It's a beautiful opportunity to think outside the box and solve the problem of how to engage a variety of learners in diverse contexts. However, it was strange to make recommendations based on contexts with which I'm unfamiliar. One of the first things I do when I'm designing a unit is think about who the learners are and what their needs are, and when I'm reviewing my colleagues' unit and lesson plans, I have a very hazy understanding of their learners. As a result, I had to think as divergently as possible, and come up with ideas and suggestions that were less obvious than if I had been reviewing one of my own design pieces.
I was pleasantly surprised by the outstanding quality of these units. At times it was a stretch to think of any suggestions, let alone suggestions that might improve lesson sequencing, clarify learning outcomes, or enrich the resources and materials being used. The greatest benefit for me was the chance to read and learn from such master teachers. As I continue in the OLTD program, I know that I will have strong "nodes" in my web to draw on and learn from. This was another wonderful way to social construct knowledge and learn collaboratively, and I would love to incorporate activities like this into my own online teaching practice.
I adore the challenge of instructional design. It's a beautiful opportunity to think outside the box and solve the problem of how to engage a variety of learners in diverse contexts. However, it was strange to make recommendations based on contexts with which I'm unfamiliar. One of the first things I do when I'm designing a unit is think about who the learners are and what their needs are, and when I'm reviewing my colleagues' unit and lesson plans, I have a very hazy understanding of their learners. As a result, I had to think as divergently as possible, and come up with ideas and suggestions that were less obvious than if I had been reviewing one of my own design pieces.
I was pleasantly surprised by the outstanding quality of these units. At times it was a stretch to think of any suggestions, let alone suggestions that might improve lesson sequencing, clarify learning outcomes, or enrich the resources and materials being used. The greatest benefit for me was the chance to read and learn from such master teachers. As I continue in the OLTD program, I know that I will have strong "nodes" in my web to draw on and learn from. This was another wonderful way to social construct knowledge and learn collaboratively, and I would love to incorporate activities like this into my own online teaching practice.
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