Instructional Design - EDLD 5318

Lamar University - EDLD 5318: Instructional Design in Online Learning

The main assessment for EDLD 5318 was to create a fully online class of the student’s choice, ideally in that student’s expertise. Using the development of an online course as an assessment was a creative and engaging way to help students learn while building a tool they can use in the future. The assessment uses the constructivist model of instruction, giving students the opportunity to learn through an active process of construction and reflection (IDKB, 2014).

There are a few instructional design theories applied in Phil Magbanua - Leadership and the Growth Mindset, with the main strategies using cognitivism and constructivism. The class focuses on the application and reflection of lessons and activities learned about leadership, the growth mindset, and the combination of the two. Cognitivist principles occur as students must acquire knowledge through reading or listening to audio, and watching videos. Taking those lessons and processing how those principles relate to their current mental structure, allows for learning to be enhanced through personal and meaningful context (IDKB, 2014).

Constructivism is demonstrated in the class by the use of transformative learning, building on reflection of the use of the growth mindset, then executing different principles of leadership in real-life, in-person situations. Students are then urged to reflect on a leadership model that incorporates the growth mindset and how the concepts may be relevant to their own organizations and teams. The transformative learning described above also exemplify principles of the ADDIE model of instructional design (Morrison, 2013), where information or lessons learned through context are built on using evaluation, analysis, and implementation.

In the class Phil Magbanua - Leadership and the Growth Mindset, there are many different modes of learning environments and opportunities for the application of knowledge. Students in the class were given links to audiobooks for most of the required reading, allowing them to listen or read along to the lesson. Videos were also part of the lesson plan, adding to the multimodal methods of input. Learning was deepened by the use of reflection and real-world application. There is a weekly video/audio conference where the teacher may provide some information, but the main purpose of the meeting is for the teacher to act as a facilitator to guide conversations among the students. The discussion is built around helping the student learn from each other by discussing what they have learned from required real-world activities or reading. These discussions align with what McTighe and Seif (2003) described, with the focus of the teacher to help the students understand and apply of knowledge instead of simply providing the information.

There is great value in EDLD 5318, as the lesson learned of building an online course can be directly applied by actually using the course as a class at an academic institution. The lessons learned from building the class are much more beneficial than the product though. EDLD 5318 exemplified learning through the process, not the product. Building an online class while taking an online program gives the students the opportunity to reflect on learning preferences while applying those preferences on teaching. Students had the ability to examine methods of navigation and access while building their own course.

Having the students build their own course while progressively learning the OSCQR standards was a good way to start with small attainable and understandable goals, allowing for scaffolding for more complex details as the course progressed. The professor Dr. Ybarra was intent on encouraging choice in course development and content, while providing direction and structure using the standards, class material, and class video conferencing. EDLD 5318 is the embodiment of constructivism, and helps students get a grasp of developing an online class while learning and diving deeper into the meaning of instructional design and learning theories.

References

Instructional Design Knowledge Base. (2014). Select Instructional Models / Theories to Develop Instructional Prototypes. Retrieved from:

http://cehdclass.gmu.edu/ndabbagh/Resources/IDKB/models_theories.htm

Morrison, D. (2013). “Start Here”: Instructional Design Models for Online Courses. Online Learning Insights. Retrieved from: https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/start-here-instructional-design-models-for-online-courses/

McTighe, J. and Seif, E. (2003). A Summary of Underlying Theory and Research Base

For Understanding by Design. Retrieved from:

https://amara.org/en/videos/EGp9AZspE8hl/info/behaviorism-cognitivism-constructivism-learning-and-instructional-theory/