Monday, November 28, 2016

Exploring Design Layers in Learning Environments



The Learning Design Team’s primary responsibility is to assist faculty as they design online, hybrid and self-paced online courses.  The completed course design projects are evaluated using a quality rubric that consists of core elements and five additional sections.  With the goal of passing the evaluation process with a minimum of 90%, the instructional designers attempt to provide support that will make the design process simple and efficient.   In order to provide consistent resources and information, the team is building an online resource to provide the resources for each section in the rubric.  The outcome is the production of the online resource – Course Design Guide.

The strategy used to develop the resources considered the needs faculty have from the moment of first interest in designing a course, to the application process, and concluding with submitting the finished project for evaluation.  Consideration is given to providing just-in-time resources, reducing duplication of resources, eliminating or at least reducing differing interpretations of the evaluation rubric. 

The system includes face-to-face meetings to communicate needs and expectations, continued asynchronous support in the form of email and shared electronic resources, and continual updated content for the Course Design Guide.

The experience has an impact both on the faculty involved in the course design projects as well as members of the instructional design team.  The ability to reference consistent support materials is an important part of the design process.  We have also discussed the potential impact it could have for the faculty evaluators.  They sometimes struggle to apply the rubric outcomes to the assigned course evaluation.  The Course Design Guide can provide the additional explanation they need to properly evaluate a course.

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