Welcome to EDF 6284 – Instructional Design. This is a short introduction we put together to help you get acquainted with the workings of this course. This course looks at how you can better organize yourself as a teacher/instructor or course designer can do to create better lessons. It does not cover how to select WHAT to teach but rather HOW to teach.
We truly hope you enjoy this course. It is a lot of work but a lot of fun at the same time. Stay tuned for some entertaining reading/viewing.
Let’s review some things to help you become familiar with what we are about to be doing:
- This course is organized in lesson cycles. While this seems a bit rapid, we have divided topics into focusing questions (one to two per week) to help keep things moving. The first cycle is dedicated to helping you understand the ‘domain’ of the instructional designer, definitions, a places to go for resources and information.
- This brings up another point: While the learning cycles are set, this does not mean we won’t be introducing new things as we go long. This means that we expect you to log into Canvas regularly… two to three times each week. Do not lose sight of the fact that the assumption is that you will be spending up to nine hours a week outside the class. This depends on the nature of the task. For example, after a log-in, you might only check the course Announcements and email and spend a total of 5 minutes online in the course. Or, after a log-in, you might decide to work extensively on various course assignments and spend 50 minutes online in the course.
- Canvas is the front end /portal for the content of this course. While all materials are found on this site, you can reach everything you need through Canvas.
- Your Final, Culminating Activity (see link below) is a lesson set you will be designing that integrates the principles provided throughout this course. You will need to provide the content, plus a design document that explains how and why you made the decisions you did with regards to content delivery, content itself and the goals and objectives as well as a description of the audience it will be delivered to.
- Since this is an graduate level, practice-based course, with the exception of the mid-term check-up self test, there are no exams. All graded activities are based on readings, discussions, reflections, and your culminating activity. The first Wiki assignment is intended to provide you with information for your classmates so you can feel free to contact them should you need help. I am hoping a buddy system will develop so you all do not feel isolated in any way.
- Please note that there is no text for this course. But there are several readings that we provide and others that you will need to dig into on your own.
- So first thing first.. take a look at the syllabus and schedule. The begin with this cycle’s readings and post your reflections. Next time, we will randomly assign you to a randomly selected group of other’s posts for you to begin a discussion about their comments in anticipation of some lively discussions.
Review the final culminating project for this course to give you an idea as to where we are heading
Do This!