Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers were forced to develop emergency online teaching resources, mostly without any background in instructional design. After completing the readings above, what are your thoughts on instructional design as a discipline, and what might be its wider relevance for teaching, whether designing for face-to-face, blended, or online settings? To preface this blog post, I first wanted to explain my current relationship with the term “Instructional Design”. Instructional Design is one of those heavy, academia words that many educators (including myself!) do not fully understand. To me, it’s this vague concept that has something to do with teaching, but requires a lot of reflecting (which I don’t really have time for), and seems too dense to digest. Pre-Pandemic, I was working at two different schools: teaching a Grade ½ class 3 days a week at one, and teaching a Grade ¾ class 2 days a week at the other. Suddenly, and without warning, I was now required to teach both schools, spanning 4 different grades, fully online during the emergency remote learning. So when I think of my own pedagogy this past year of how I “designed my teaching” I really can’t come up with any viable description of what I did. Honestly, it’s just been survival mode. I could tell you what I would like to do for my instructional design, but I certainly have not been able to incorporate that into either of my classrooms. With all that being said, it still is useful to break down the construct of Instructional Design, in order to fully understand its effect in education. In an article by Wagner, she also agreed that Instructional Design “seems to be an even harder domain to adequately define and describe!” Although challenging, it is necessary for educators to be aware of the importance of Instructional Design- even if it appears dense. Instructional Design describes the ways in which educators plan out their teaching, so that all students are learning content effectively. In OLTD 501, we created a visual mind map of how we infuse Instructional Design into blended or fully online classrooms. In stepping back to truly assess what instructional design entails, I was able to grasp the concept with more ease. Wagner, however, takes the discipline of Instructional Design to a whole new level. She breaks it down into 4 sub-categories. 1. Instructional-Design-as Process This describes the process in which instructional design unfolds. This is the meat and potatoes of what educators do subconsciously-or consciously- all the time. It involves analyzing the learning needs and goals for students, along with developing a delivery system in which to deliver the content. 2. Instructional Design-as-Discipline Rather than sticking to the classroom- instructional design can also be a branch of knowledge, or academic discipline that revolves around research and theory regarding instructional strategies 3. Instructional-Design-as Science This describes the trial-and-error mentality of the scientific method. Similar to the first category, Instructional Design-as-Science will investigate deeper to revise the way learning is occurring within a classroom. 4. Instructional-Design-as Reality Often what teachers have planned, does not occur as envisioned. Instructional-Design-as-Reality honours this fact, and absorbs the realities of the day-to-day classroom as part of instructional design. This sub-category also includes reflection and looking back to ensure the students are keeping on track with the intentions of the learning objectives. Prior to beginning this program, I thought of Instructional Design as the second subcategory (Instructional-Design-as-Discipline), which is why my knee-jerk reaction is to panic every time I hear the phrase. However, through unpacking and defining this term more closely, I can see how it is incredibly applicable in my teaching framework. Interestingly enough, the second article given by Rieber described “instructional technologists” as part of an interwoven connection to instructional design. I found his article very comforting, since his main argument was that “there’s no one way to become an instructional technologist”. He argues that you don’t need a masters of IT in order to incorporate instructional technology into a learning design model (thank goodness!). At the very end of his article, he proposes the question: What is your story about how you became an Instructional Technologist, to which I internally responded, “Am I?. I don’t really feel like I am deeply integrating “instructional anything” into my current teaching pedagogical plate. However, is it practical to do? Yes. Is it important? Yes. Is it very difficult to focus on right now because there’s a pandemic? Also, yes. However, just that fact that we are discussing instructional design is a step in the right direction. Links to reading:
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