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Instructional Design

Instructional Design

Fear and Design

By Kristin Kowal
December 7, 2016

In this post, I’ll share what my colleague Moses Wolfenstein and I learned about instructional designers’ fears during a group discussion at the 2016 Distance Teaching and Learning Conference (DTLC) in Madison, Wisconsin. I’ll also share a handout with some strategies for conquering fear in design.

Context of the Discussion

A table with conference participants writing down their fears on post-it notes.
Conference participants write down their fears during “The Dark Side of Instructional Design” discussion at DTLC.

Moses and I came up with the idea of leading a discussion about fear and design after reminiscing about various projects we had worked on. Many times, some kind of fear or anxiety got in the way of the project’s success. We searched briefly and did not find anything that specifically addressed fear in instructional design. After that, we decided that we wanted to hear from other designers about their experiences. This led to a discussion about “The Dark Side of Instructional Design” at the conference in August.

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OERs: A Curator’s Perspective

By Eileen Horn
September 4, 2016

It’s a busy time around here! With the fall semester starting and new competency-based program development in full swing, everyone is working hard to deliver the best learning experiences possible. Back-to-school season is exciting but challenging for learners, instructors, and those of us in supporting roles. Part of that hard work is curating learning resources—open educational resources (OERs). Today’s post will explore how some of our faculty are approaching OERs.OER logo

In the midst of all this preparation, I’ve recently heard conversations about how important thoughtfully curated learning resources are to a student’s success, and it occurred to me it might be interesting to look back at the transcript of a conversation I had with Kim Kostka about using OERs. Kim and her colleagues Tom Neal and Tony Millevolte assembled and annotated an array of OERs for one of our Flexible Option competency sets.

Here are some of the highlights from my conversation with Kim.

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Studio Learning for Faculty Development

By Eileen Horn
April 25, 2016

Today, I introduce Fred Baker, an instructional designer at the University of Tampa. We have a common interest in openness in higher education, and I recently learned that he took a compelling approach to faculty development. Because we are in the process of designing an onboarding and development program for our faculty, I wanted to learn more about what he did.

Cover image of "Creating Significant Learning Experiences"The project was originally conceived of as a studio learning experience in which faculty would read and discuss L. Dee Fink’s Creating Significant Learning Experiences, then create tools and course components based on principles from the text, receiving feedback from peers along the way. In consideration of the busy schedules of most faculty, the experience was divided into two phases, with Phase I focused on reading and discussing the book and Phase II being the hands-on portion. Intrigued by the idea of offering something like this for our faculty, I was eager to learn from Fred about the logistics involved, and about how things went. His answers to my questions were enlightening and encouraging so I wanted to share a bit of that interview with you.

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