ID, Analysis and Me

An often rushed and sometimes completely skipped part of the instructional design (ID) process is the very first part: the analysis phase. However, as an online instructional designer for Lone Star College, it has been my experience that even a small amount of time on analysis can have huge benefits and perhaps save time overall on an instructional design project, such as an online lesson or in-person training session.

Part 1: My Recent Analysis Experience

To put my experience with ID analysis in perspective, I will share a recent experience. This experience was only slightly more detailed than what I typically encounter. I was approached by the professional development manager and full-time faculty fellow with a request to facilitate a training session at their “Faculty Institute.” This is an annual program of training sessions delivered during the first week faculty return for the fall semester after their summer hiatus. With their request, came the analysis they had conducted with the faculty advisory committee. This committee served as a focus group offering suggestions on the type of professional development they wanted offered at our college. So my own learning analysis started with this interview where I gleaned from the manager and fellow what performance gaps the faculty advisers had identified. One problem to address was faculty difficulty engaging and connecting with students via our Desire2Learn (D2L) learning management system (LMS). They informed me the theme for the training event was centered on technology and the format was a three-hour face-to-face hands-on session. In addition, since faculty have now been using D2L for four years, they expressed interest in offering them more advanced skills. They also desired to have faculty leave the training with an idea or product that could be immediately implemented in their instruction.

At this point, I started mentioning to the manager and fellow various topics I thought would fit their requirements. I was limited by applications approved within my department’s technology service level agreements. I also drew upon observations and input I have had from other faculty voicing a need to provide more interactive online lessons that could track student completion in order to meet accreditation requirements. This is especially important with our workforce faculty who need to prove their students are fulfilling the amount of instructional hours required to get a license. The manager and fellow agreed to my suggestion to design a training session centered on teaching some more intermediate level skills using a product called SoftChalk. It is an online lesson builder tool that fully integrates with D2L and is supported by my department.

Now, as I am about to enter the design phase, I am brainstorming intermediate level activities I can demonstrate and have participants do in SoftChalk. I must keep in mind that faculty wish to have an idea or product they can immediately implement. My thoughts revolve around building an interactive syllabus since that is a course material all faculty need. I have also observed that many faculty want proof their students have read the syllabus and SoftChalk’s assessment feature would accomplish that act. Because of the time limitations, I will need to narrow down the session to just a few tasks, such as:

  • I have to make sure all participants can log into SoftChalk.
  • I decided to teach them how to copy and edit an existing lesson rather than create one from scratch.
  • I want them to learn how to apply a custom theme. Theme design can either clutter a lesson, making it harder for student to learn, or be clean, making a lesson seamless and reducing cognitive load for the students.
  • Adding audio to a lesson would be helpful. It increases teacher presence and adds another learning modality. This will need to have a pre-prepared audio file sample in order to save time.
  • Finally, I will need to teach them how to save and upload their SoftChalk lesson and add it to D2L as an assessable learning object that sends a score to the gradebook.

This is just one example of how an instructional design project begins at my job. I have learned from reading various articles and our textbook that my rushed nature of analysis is not uncommon. In my position, there are many times when the analysis comes to me secondhand. It would be quite an experience to be part of a more formalized analysis phase from the very beginning.

Part 2: The Bigger Picture

After watching the video Information R/Evolution, I was contemplating the massive amount of information available to those of us with access to the Internet. I have a love/hate relationship with the Information Age. I love that it is possible to immediately find out whatever you wish to know. I have searched out how to make balloon hats and found flashcards to help practice speaking Japanese. There is value and added knowledge to be gained when a student pursues their own research and learning journey. As an instructional designer, it is exciting to see where a student may take a more openly structured learning assignment.

The flipside, is I sometimes hate the time it takes to wade through the massive amount of information to find a reliable source. Students (even faculty learners) can hate this as well. Time is precious and it can be more efficient to be delivered pre-arranged instruction from a trusted expert. This is where good analysis and design closely connect. An instructor-led training session that follows what analysis indicates, will have a better chance of delivering an instructional design that is relevant and meaningful to the intended learners. It will not waste their time to attend. To me, happy successful learners are the ultimate goal.

References

Molenda, M., Pershing, J., & Reigeluth, C. (1996). Designing instructional systems. In R. L. Craig, The ASTD Training and Development Handbook (4th ed., pp. 267-293). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Piskurich, G. M. (2015). Rapid Instructional Design: Learning ID Fast and Right (3rd ed.). Hoboken: Wiley.

Romiszowski, A. J. (1981). Designing Instructional Systems. New York: Nichols.

Wesch, M. (2007, October 12). Information r/evolution. Retrieved from YouTube: https://youtu.be/-4CV05HyAbM

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