Instructional Design Project Reflection
This is the first start-to-finish instructional design project that I have completed and I was able to learn much throughout the process. I'm very grateful that I was able to choose my teammates for the project. I selected teammates with similar availability in their schedules who communicated via Slack and reviewed Slack messages regularly. Therefore, the team was able to meet on a regular basis and had a predetermined and comfortable method of communication from the beginning of the project. In addition, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that my teammates were hard-working and dedicated to the quality of the instructional materials.
My team was very thorough when reviewing the design case and careful to follow all instructions to the best of our ability/understanding of the instructional materials being requested. The instructional materials we created were well-aligned with the needs of the target learners as they provided a complete and comprehensive walkthrough for creating and disseminating the required introduction video. This walkthrough used a combination of text, video, and screenshots (which could be easily reviewed, referred to, and emulated) with opportunities to stop and implement the steps learned throughout the course. Also, a formative and summative assessment were provided to ensure that the learners were creating the video according to the listed specifications and that the final product was able to be viewed within the Learning Management System (LMS). All of the goals that were outlined in the design case were met as the course was carefully constructed with all of the required aspects; as a result, the learners had edited, exported, and embedded their introduction videos to university standards by the end of the course, meeting the learning goal of enhancing instructor presence and engagement in their courses.
I am appreciative of the diligence and thoroughness of my team and, consquently, there are not many areas that I would change in our final product. One area that can be improved is ensuring that all sections have concise wording, as it is important that learners are provided only with text that meets their needs and nothing superfluous in order to remain focused on the learning goals and not use valuable time with unnecessary reading. The videos in the instructional materials were thoroughly reviewed to ensure that the clips only provided the necessary material. I believe that the text would benefit from the same careful eye. In the future, it would be beneficial for one of the team member roles to be reviewing all sections for conciseness. Given more time on future instructional design projects and having more knowledge of learning design and technologies, I would be interested in exploring additional methods of presenting materials. For instance, the course could be enhanced by incorporating simulated practice of the course concepts with live feedback integrated. An example of this would be incorporating a simulation of the software with instructions to drag and drop a video onto the timeline; the simulation would provide automated live feedback with a response indicating to learners if the task was completed correctly and highlighting related areas as needed.
Creating a detailed and specific Detailed Design Document was of high importance so that it could be easily reviewed and approved by all team members. With the Detailed Design Document completed, we were able to quickly and easily design the course in the LMS, at which point the team was able to focus on the visual aspect and layout of the course in the LMS as opposed to the content. Creating and maintaining a clear and specific Detailed Design Document allows another team or person to smoothly transfer into assisting with or taking over the project, if necessary, as everything is compiled in one place and thoroughly documented.
I appreciate the iterative nature of the instructional design process because, as each portion builds upon the last, there is time and space for reflection on previous steps and the ability to edit if areas are missing or need to be adjusted. For instance, after moving from the task analysis to the Detailed Design Document, I was able to see that we did not have a sufficient introduction to the software. In moving from the learning objectives to the Detailed Design Document, I was able to see that, although there was an idea of an assessment method, the practicalities had not been fleshed out. If this process was not in place and instructional materials were designed within the LMS from the beginning, these sorts of issues could easily be overlooked. The final instructional materials were thorough and complete because we were able to build upon and improve on each layer in this iterative process.
I am proud of my team and the instructional materials we created. While group projects can be challenging in an online environment with teammates who are newly introduced to each other, my team came together to collaborate and create a quality product by attending meetings prepared, completing assigned portions in a timely manner, communicating needs, listening to each other, and being willing to adapt and defer to others as needed, each knowing our strength and weaknesses. This aspect of the instructional design process might be called the invisible part of the process, but it is just as vital as the other parts of the process. A breakdown in any of these components of teamwork could lead to a breakdown of the entire project.
As a result of this project, have a holistic and comprehensive understanding of the instructional design process and am prepared to move into the next courses in the Learning Design and Technologies program. I am also equipped to move into a more in-depth role in instructional design in my workplace. I look forward to accomplishing both in the near future.
