Instructional Designer Existential Crisis

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Hey all of you Instructional Designers, Educational Developers, Distance Education Online Learning Specialists! It is time to lay off with the complaints that the emergency response to online learning as a result of Covid-19 is not real online learning.

Because it is. There has been a lot of gnashing of teeth regarding definitions and nomenclature, and some have been excellent, while many feel like they are an attempt to demarcate territory .

“But what about the QUALITY!”

I have heard this cry about ‘the quality’ many times from many different quarters over the last seven months. I am wondering about the sincerity of this cri de cœur. What I saw in response was management quickly rushing out and purchasing a subscription to Quality Matters, send out an email to our 2000+ instructors to let them know and how to get access, and then sit back and watch the quality roll in.

Has the quality rolled in?

At this stage, I don’t think that the issue is about the mechanics of implementing a quality agenda, whether that is via this rubric or that one. I think we need to start with the cri de cœur itself and where it is originating from. I hear it mostly from the cadre of professional instructional designers who see what instructors are doing online and are up in arms because these instructors are not following ‘the model’.

What I mean by ‘the model’ is pretty loose, but it essentially includes all the elements that go into a terrific fully distance-based online course that will increase instructor, cognitive and social presence and engender student motivation for student success. These courses typically require a project-based course development team from three to nine months to build and have delivery-ready an online course for a pilot. Feedback will be gathered from the pilot and rolled into a (controlled) next phase of development so that the eventual course has been pretty much instructor-proofed.

In contrast, what I have witnessed with our dedicated campus-based instructors as they switch to online delivery does not necessarily look like those full-meal-deal online courses. But that doesn’t mean that they are not hitting all of the elements of instructor, cognitive and social presences. It often means that they are relying heavily on the synchronous tools to manage the aspects of getting themselves out there as instructors, and to engage students. But that is changing as they get more experience.

Does that mean the quality is bad? I would like to think that a full-time normally-campus-based instructor muddle ahead with their access to an array of online learning tools is going to do a pretty good job because they:

  • know their students
  • are experienced educators
  • know their subjects well
  • not only already have a substantial body of work in terms of learning activities and assessments, but have refined it over time
  • know where their course(s) fit in to their overall programs

The above could not be said for the contracting of instructors to teach in online courses developed according to the full-meal-deal. I would argue that is why we have to bake into the ‘model’ so much of the instructional aspect, the area where dedicated instructional designers prove their worth, because these courses are being essentially tutored/facilitated by non-teaching people.

Let’s step back and respect our professional teaching faculty who have made the shift to online teaching. I am now at the stage as an instructional designer at my institute where I have a great deal to learn from them. Before Covid, me and my unit were the keepers of the special knowledge about online learning. After eight months, I am in awe of what my 2000+ teaching colleagues have learned as online teaching professionals. I think there is a critical shifting that has taken place and I think it is important for me and my ID colleagues to move over and make space for pretty much everybody, because everybody is now an online instructor.

Taxonomy of Online Development Business Models

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I received some funding in 2018-9 to clarify a taxonomy of business models that are in place at the institution where I work for developing online courses. I couldn’t find if there was ever a deliberate attempt to define what I say was a diversity of practice. My attempt was to define what I had seen and experienced working with the various schools and programs over ten years to put courses online. I created a working version based on what I had seen, and then used the funding to validate with various and diverse members at the institute.

As a result, I created a draft of a taxonomy, which looks at both how subject matter experts/instructors are released to work on the courses, as well as the design implications that as Learning and Teaching Centre, we should be keeping in mind if we want to help the schools create sustainable online learning.

An explanation of each of the four main categories is below, and here is the detailed version. This is the presentation I made at the conclusion of my little project and here is my poster from a poster session I did at the 2019 ETUG Spring conference.

As a background to course development models that are possible, I use as a mental model these continuums:

Boutique Collegial Project Models of development depending on instructor autonomy

Now, almost two years later, I am wondering if I can narrow down the categories to two essential ones: is it an institute-owned course or is it an instructor-owned course? This is the essential question, especially in light of what I have learned and experienced during the Covid-19 response.

The four drafted categories with details are as follows:

The instructor owns the course and teaches the course

The instructor created the course and offering this course depends on this instructor being available to teach it.

Factors affecting variability of initial development:

Instructor created course:

  • on own time,
  • as part of teaching duties,
  • on release via a grant enabling backfill from teaching workload

Can occur in both full-time and part-time programs as well as service areas.

Administration & Maintenance

The instructor is responsible for administering the course and for maintaining the course. The program or department has no input.

Potential Design, Development/ Re-development Implications

  • Can get away with less front-loaded instructional design/development as instructor typically actively teaching.
  • Challenges: Critical for lone ranger instructor to consider up-front design decisions as they will affect workload sustainability of delivery and maintenance of the course later on.

The instructor owns the course

One instructor created the course and this is the instructor who “owns” the course.

This authoring instructor has permitted other instructors to teach the course for either concurrent or subsequent offerings by the department.

Factors affecting variability of initial development:

Instructor created course:

  • on own time,
  • as part of teaching duties,
  • on release via a grant enabling backfill from teaching workload

Can occur in both full-time and part-time programs as well as service areas.

Administration & Maintenance

The instructor, the program assistant or the program head/chief instructor may perform administrative tasks.

The instructor is responsible for course changes and updates. In some circumstances, significant changes are discussed as a department.

Significant updates and changes for course currency may be done via:

  • Workload: an instructor is released from regular duties to work on changes and updates.
  • The program contracts with an instructor via a “yellow contract” to work on changes and updates

Potential Design, Development/ Re-development Implication

Can get away with less front-loaded instructional design/development as instructor typically actively teaching.

  • Challenges: Critical for lone ranger instructor to consider up-front design decisions as they will affect workload sustainability of delivery and maintenance of the course later on.

The institution owns the course

The school/program developed the course/program and hired on a contract subject matter experts and/or current instructors to create the course.

Course creation may be an individual or may be a team of subject matter experts/instructors.

Instructors may be full-time or part-time instructors.

The program contracts with instructors to teach the course. The instructor may be contracted directly from industry to teach the course or the instructor may be a full-time instructor contracted to teach the course part-time outside of regular workload.

In some cases, there might be a single full-time faculty for the program with additional part-time contracted faculty. Sometimes, additional tutors are hired on contract to assist the regular instructor in course delivery.

Factors affecting variability of initial development:

In order to develop online courses, BCIT offers ‘yellow contracts’ to:

  • full-time instructors
  • part-time instructors
  • external subject matter experts

Can occur in both full-time and part-time (PTS) programs as well as service areas.

Administration & Maintenance

The instructor, the program assistant or the program head/chief instructor may perform administrative tasks.

Significant updates and changes for course currency may be done via:

  • Workload: an instructor is released from regular duties to work on changes and updates.
  • The program contracts with an instructor via a “yellow contract” to work on changes and updates
  • The program contracts with an external subject matter expert to work on changes and updates

Potential Design, Development/ Re-development Implications

Historically has significant instructional design(ID) front-loaded to compensate for minimal instructional presence during development/almost attempt to ‘instructor-proof’ course. Faculty who regularly teach online can get away with less front-loading of design, but sessional /PTS-faculty need to follow an existing design embedded in the course in order to mitigate their lack of experience.

Some now use synchronous tools for active and dynamic responsiveness.

The institution owns the course

The school/program developed the course/program by adding it to the departmental workload and releasing a full-time instructor from other duties in order to develop the course.

The teaching of the course is allocated to an instructor by the department through workload processes.

Additionally, sometimes, the program may (yellow) contract with additional instructors to teach the course.

Factors affecting variability of initial development:

Occurs in full-time programs and in service areas.

Administration & Maintenance

The instructor, the program assistant or the program head/chief instructor may perform administrative tasks.

Significant updates and changes for course currency may be done via:

  • Workload: an instructor is released from regular duties to work on changes and updates.
  • The program contracts with an instructor via a “yellow contract” to work on changes and updates
  • The program contracts with an external subject matter expert to work on changes and updates.

Potential Design, Development/ Re-development Implications

Historically has significant ID front-loaded to compensate for minimal instructional presence during development/almost attempt to ‘instructor-proof’ course. Some now use synchronous tools for active and dynamic responsiveness.

What’s new about ‘Adaptive Learning’?

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How is anything that is being called ‘Adaptive Learning’ more than the programs of past courseware, such as Plato courseware. I used grammar modules on Plato terminals in the first school I taught at in 1992. Besides the advances in the interface, what has changed behind the scenes that takes the activity beyond the ‘if-then’ design of many of the drills and activities? How much more is the intelligent tutoring system today then from days gone by?

Loved this video about the olden day of Plato and computer-based learning from the website, Plato History:

http://www.platohistory.org/blog/2010/06/plato50-online-education-panel-video.html

Dr. Sharon Dugdale says at 1.01.30:

“When I started designing for Plato, I had this notion that was in the air at the moment, that the big thing about computers was the individualization and the diagnostic capability and every key press that can be put in by a student can be analyzed and you can branch students off into all sorts of places. It was taking very seriously everything they input and it is going to revolutionize education in that way.

And I very quickly found, and I’m not trying to cast aspersions on that notion because I think that there are kinds of things that can be designed that way, but the things we were designing really weren’t suited to that kinds of treatment and the very social atmosphere that we were seeing particularly in our elementary schools where students would group around a computer or be looking at the screen next to them. There’s some interaction going on, you’re not really hearing from one kid, and you can’t take too seriously every key press that goes in there.

And to me, it made a big difference in backing me off from that notion and putting me somewhat at odds with the people who became the intelligent tutoring movement and having me much more minimal about what you should really say to the student, you need to be really concerned about the environment you give them.”

Developing learning materials for print publishing

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I have had the opportunity over the last two years to work on a print-based student materials project. It was quite a change from working on online and digital learning materials.

The demands of the creating materials for print make the project feel like the stakes are higher, because once the files go to the printers, no more changes can be made. And if there are errors that require changes (so inevitable with 1200+ pages in each series), we just have to accept them since making changes requires another re-tooling and re-launching of the entire production. So the stakes are real; getting it right is important; process and versioning is critical.

Last year, at the end of the first year, I was asked to write a report about the experiences and to make recommendations. After a year, there is no indication that any of my recommendations will be considered; however, I share the report here because it helps me track my thoughts.

Post-Pilot Report: Revising and Resequencing EAP Level 1 and Level 2 Learning Guides Project

What is ‘innovation’ in education? (& I mean something beyond the blah + blah)

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Was it a memo coming from the ministry five or six years ago? It seems that all the post-secondaries have either created or re-fashioned existing units into ‘innovation’ departments: Educational Support and Innovation, Centre of Teaching, Learning and Innovation, Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning….etc..

But what is innovation in education? From where I sit, all I’ve seen is the whiz-cool-bang of AR/VR attract the flock like an untrammeled field of alfalfa. But AR/VR is not innovative if it’s used to support the tired old demonstrate/test or drill/test pedagogies, right? And gosh – considering the labour and $$$-intensity to develop and use AR/VR makes one wonder about its value as an innovation that reduces barriers, increases access, and generally makes learning better for more people.

It’s so hard to be reasonable with people when they have their senses locked in a techno-ecstasy, so I’ve started a rough draft of a rubric to use to evaluate educational innovation:

Inquiry questions: Yes/no?
Is it innovative? Is it different and better?  
Is the innovation playing a constructive role in improving educational opportunities and outcomes?  
Does it support learner-centred education?  
Is it a needs-driven approach to innovation?  
Does it apply to learners living in the real-world?  
Does it complement and support good teaching and learning practices?  
Will instructors be supported?  
Can it be scaled to accommodate the majority of instructors and teaching environments?  
Is the focus on teaching and learning practices?  
As the innovation develops, does expertise expand from the few to the many – are individual instructors empowered and able to own the innovation in their own practices?  
Is it truly innovative or is it something that is new/novel?  
Is it truly innovative or is it a belated adoption of improved practice? (eg. adoption of PBL to replace lecture)  

Inspired from:

Achieving Development Goals Innovation In Education and Development: http://pcf4.dec.uwi.edu/innovation.php

OECD Measure Innovation in Education: http://www.oecd.org/education/measuring-innovation-in-education.htm