Instructional Design in Online Learning
UbD and Learning Goals
Back in the Habit
The penultimate class in Lamar University's DLL graduate's degree program focuses on online course development. Now being almost a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, distance learning has become somewhat of the norm. 95% of my students remain virtual to this day, so the timing of this initiative could not be any more timely.
WEEK #1
The first week had us revisit our UbD (Understanding by Design) plan established in our last course. The UbD model is based on 7 key tenets
(source: ASCD.org - http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/UbD_WhitePaper0312.pdf)
1. Learning is enhanced when teachers think purposefully about curricular planning.
2. The ability to effectively use content knowledge and skill).
3. Understanding is revealed when students autonomously make sense of and transfer their learning through authentic performance.
4. Effective curriculum is planned backward from long-term, desired results through a three-stage design process (Desired Results, Evidence, and Learning Plan).
5. Teachers are coaches of understanding, not mere purveyors of content knowledge, skill, or activity.
6. Regularly reviewing units and curriculum against design standards enhances curricular quality and effectiveness, and provides engaging and professional discussions.
7. The UbD framework reflects a continual improvement approach to student achievement and teacher craft.
This backwards design philosophy incorporates many teaching strategies I emphasize in my classroom daily: student-centered, teachers as facilitators, real-world, results-based learning.
WEEK #2
This week we began building an online course from scratch. In my district (Austin ISD) we have been using BLEND, a modified version of the CANVAS LMS (Learning Management System), for several years now. So when it came time to select how to building my course, setting up a separate, free account on CANVAS was a no-brainer.
My intent was to import much of my existing content from my current classes to my new build, but storage became a significant issue. With a district account I have virtually unlimited storage to host my files on CANVAS, which I have been doing. The new, free account allows for less than a gig of online storage; meaning if I wanted to reuse my content I would have to download and host on a 3rd party site. Doing so has been so cumbersome that I have begun building from scratch, something I am grateful for because revisiting the content has allowed me to enhance what I already had created.
Of the two courses I teach, COMPUTER SCIENCE and PRINCIPLES OF ENGINEERING, the former has (obviously) taken the path of least resistance when converting to an online-only format. Teaching students about computers while using computers go hand-in-hand; however, my PRINCIPLES OF ENGINEERING course (i.e. - Robotics) is not as portable. Building and creating in-person is the main component to engineering. While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about necessary change, especially in education, one of the benefits has been educational companies having to adapt to stay viable. In the case of Robotics, companies like VEX have pivoted to make online robotics possible. Without this disruption, making distance-learning engineering courses work would have taken monetary resources beyond my scope.
WEEK 3 & 4
The next two weeks were about building out my courses in CANVAS. Like I stated previously, I have already designed full online modules for all my courses using this LMS already, but the storage limitation of the free version is making me have to rethink how to do things. This has turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as I've had to do a lot of researching on using new tools that were foreign to me, so I feel as though I have learned a lot more about features and workarounds in the process. Now I can embed using iframe with ease, and it has actually turned into my go-to method instead of waiting for huge video files to upload to CANVAS.
Another thing that has changed is my outline. I have not followed it to a tee; instead, in laying everything out I have had moments like, "What if I add 'this' here and move 'that' there?" (which is the whole purpose of outlines in the first place, me thinks; they are made to be changed). As a result, I have found that my course is a lot more fleshed out than what I had originally put on paper.