This is the part where you learn about different instructional theories and how they function. Reigeluth (1999) used the term 'instructional-design theory', which is defined as a theory that "offers explicit guidance on how to between help people learn and develop.
We suggest you get acquainted with the following theories:
Behaviorism
Skinner's Programmed Instruction
Keller's Personalized System of Instruction (PSI)
Cognitivism
Gagné's Nine Events
Reigeluth's Elaboration Theory
Component Display Theory (CDT)
Instructional Transaction Theory (ITT)
Constructivism
Anchored Instruction
Case-Based Reasoning
Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT)
Jonassen's Constructivist Learning Environments (CLEs)
Mayer's SOL
Open-Ended Learning Environments (OELEs)
Perkins and Unger's Teaching and Learning for Understanding (TfU)
Problem-Based Learning (PBL)
Situated Learning
Every Instructional Designer should have a portfolio of previous projects. Narcissistic inclinations aside, a well-balanced representation of your courses and projects may bring along a plethora of future benefits. Portfolios facilitate recruiters’ jobs and provide a great shortcut to the cherished interview, avoiding ordinary selection filters. Nice samples of your e-Learning courses and academic work will catch an employer’s eye.
Come up with a subject you really care about. Your goal is to develop a learning experience - course or learning module - on this topic.
Examples:
https://www.devlinpeck.com/portfolio
https://www.cathellis.com/
https://learnmindfully.co/portfolio/
Now it’s the time to go back to learning theories and consider which one will work best for you will be desiging.
Consider:
- How do you want to organize your learning
- Which mode to choose
- What kind of resources you would need to develop
- How will students interact with the content
Now is also the time to check out online courses that are out there. Look at as many as you can, pay special attention to those dedicated to the same topic as the one you chose.
Note:
- What worked and what didn’t for you
- Which tools were used
- Go through the course feedback. What did students like and what did they hate?
Check out some common mistakes designers make in online courses:
Now you are ready to develop the contents of your course. The 5 topics you see in this section don’t have to be linear and you can ignore the ones you don’t need in your course. If your course is about yoga and you only need videos and nothing else - just develop videos. If your course contains different types of information - videos, audios, pictures, text - and you want it to be located in a learning management system and track student learning - then you will need to master all those skills as well.
Developing text content is pretty straightforward. Decide which text materials you will want your students to read. Make sure to add links in the right places. PDF is the best format to choose since it works best on most devices. Download Adobe Acrobat Reader DC and learn how to use it - edit pdf, organize pages, create links, fill forms, jump to certain page in pdf by clicking on the link and other features.
Your course will definitely need images. Read Mayer’s 12 Principles of Multimedia Learning and follow them religiously when you develop your presentations and all types of visuals.
More tips here.
TOOLS: Canva.com is great place to be if you don’t want to learn image editing, but just want to put together a good looking presentation fast. Just choose a nice template and drag and drop everything you need onto it. Highly recommended.
If you want to go an extra mile - my go-to programs when creating visuals are Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and for simple and quick fixes - Mac Preview.
Making an instructional video is a great option because it allows learners to absorb the information faster and retain more of the knowledge.
- Keep your videos short. Nearly all experts firmly believe that training videos should be as long as they need to be in order to meet learning objective; however, research suggests that 6 minutes is the optimal length for instructional videos. After 6 minutes engagement drops rapidly.
- Measure your results. Make sure you know which videos are driving success and which ones aren’t. Not every video player and hosting site track the same metrics, but many of them have similar data points for you to review.
More tips here
TOOLS: Master at least Imovie (ideally Final Cut or Adobe PremierPro) to edit your videos.
A learning management system, or LMS, is a fancy word for software that helps users create, administer, manage, and analyze eLearning courses and trainings. As a centralized hub for information and learning resources, LMSs are essentially the engine that powers eLearning. Most LMSs now are cloud-based and have the look and feel of a regular website that administrators, instructors, and students can all access.
There are 2 things we believe you should focus on when developing your course in LMS -
Social learning is a huge part of engagement. In fact, the 70/20/10 model states that 20% of everything we learn is learnt socially. You should encourage social learning with an array of tried and tested methods. Some of these can include: Creating ‘Clubs’ – discussion groups focusing on a particular topic or departmentAdding an Experts area to your platformIncluding social streamsInstalling a social Q&ACreating and sharing surveys
While all LMSs have WYSIWYG editing tool bars, they also provide an HTML source code editor. Using HTML to finesse learning resources and activities should be a normal practice when developing within an LMS. Consider mastering basic HTML.
TOOLS: Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard.
Interactive learning is a hands-on approach to help students become more engaged and retain more material. With or without a form of technology, interactive learning helps students strengthen problem solving and critical thinking skills. All in all we want learners to interact with the content, not just be passive receivers of it.
H5P is short for HTML5 Package and is a simple way to create and share rich and interactive web content. Consider making interactive videos, flashcards, board games and most importantly - breaching scenarios(beta version available). Branching Scenario is a flexible content type that enables authors to present a variety of rich interactive content and choices to learners. Learners make choices that determine the content they will see.
TOOLS: H5P is amazing and free, Articulate Storyline does the same things, but it’s hard to use and it’s expensive.
Your very first course is done now. Time to be proud yet realistic. Test it on people you know. Get some honest feedback. Find out what they liked and what they didn’t like. Test how much they actually learned.
When you do that be timely with feedback. “If you don’t start off at the beginning giving them feedback that has meaning for them, the quality of their work slips. If you give them good, strong feedback at the beginning that’s very personal, constructive, and helpful, the quality of their work [will be better] for the whole semester. If they know that somebody really cares about what they’re doing and [makes] that personal connection, they will work to that expectation. If they don’t think the instructor is spending time with their work and simply says, ‘Oh, you did a great job’ but doesn’t make anything personal, they figure, ‘Oh well, the instructor skimmed the information,’” Cleveland said.
Consider all the interoperability issues that may occur after the development of an eLearning course (e.g. desktop, mobile devices, web browsers, etc.) to guarantee optimal delivery of eLearning content: Unfortunately, there are no guarantees.The best practice is to follow Murphy’s Law when it comes to eLearning content development: “What can go wrong, will go wrong.” You never really know which online courses a learner is accessing at any given time, what bandwidth connectivity is available, the emotional state of the learner, whether the learner decides to consume learning in their offices, in a classroom, or on the go, and most importantly, you never really know the learner’s digital literacy level. Before reviewing with the client, be certain to test your course on all desktop and mobile platforms. Create a checklist of evaluation criteria.
The testing phase will quickly highlight any flaws that need to be addressed. Based on what you learn through user testing, you’ll go back and make improvements.
Sometimes there are issues that you cannot foresee until the eLearning course is completely finished. At least, that's the case when you are taking a more traditional design approach. Iterative Design makes this a non-issue though, as it allows you to detect problems in the eLearning platform, layout, or coding that can compromise the entire eLearning course. It also gives you the chance to see if your ideas are actually practical, or if you may need to rethink your eLearning strategy. For example, you may want to include a particular layout in your eLearning course design, but you soon discover that the position of the and text makes the pages look cluttered. With Iterative Design in eLearning, you have the ability to test your theories, assumptions, and ideas without having to worry about making extensive modifications later on to account for practicality. This means that you can get more creative with your eLearning course design and push the boundaries, thanks to the fact that you can simply revise it before you progress to the next phase if it doesn't work out as well as you'd hoped.
Learn more about iterative design here.
