About three years ago I began providing blended learning opportunities for students in both 1st and 2nd grade. I began researching best practices for implementing online tools as part of my daily instruction. I have since become more aware of TPACK and the SAMR model and continue to think through those frameworks as I design online instruction. As I’ve conducted research around a variety of instructional design models I’ve realized this is a piece I need to be more cognitively aware of as I design online instruction for my students.
I have been able to identify trends, implications, as well as some recommendations based on notes provided by our class after reviewing a variety of literature pieces around instructional design.
Trends:
As I looked through the research for popular trends in the articles read by students within our class, I found that creativity and engagement continue to be trends in online instructional design just as it is in face-to-face instruction. Good teaching is still good teaching even when applied to online instruction. Instructors need to continue modeling, providing time for practice, assessing, and making changes in instruction based on these assessments. These instructors also need to be creative in their instructional design in order to keep students highly engaged.
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Earlier this year I attended a conference where Dave Burgess presented his idea of “teach like a pirate”. His philosophy has roots in being creative and continuously engaging students. As online instructors use the mentioned instructional design frameworks to design their instruction with a mix of “teach like a pirate” I believe we would have high student success. The research supports the success of using instructional design frameworks that encourage creativity and highly engaging activities. Check out Dave Burgess’ website here
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Implications and Recommendations:
According to the research, there is still little research around the use of blended learning opportunities for higher education. The research also implies that effectively using any of the instructional design frameworks such as the ADDIE model, Universal Design for Learning, Merrill’s First Principles support student success. These models can support instructors in designing effective online instruction for learners in higher education.
As we move forward with online learning in higher education instructors need to make changes to their instructional designs by taking of advantage of an instructional design model that best fits their needs as they redesign their instruction. Even though good teaching is good teaching whether face-to-face or online, the instructional strategies look different and many times these instructors struggle keeping online students highly engaged.
As an instructor that provides online learning opportunities for my students, I look forward to using a mixture of these models as I redesign instruction for my students. I also believe participating in online classes as a student with an amazing professor has been a fantastic model for strong online instruction!
Yes! "Good teaching is still good teaching even when applied to online instruction." Also, as you mentioned, online instructors first need quality experiences as online learners. It can be very difficult to make the transition from face-to-face instructor to online instructor without having some experience as an online learner. I hope that these findings from ID research will be useful for you in your work with elementary teachers and students and with your pre-service teachers. Overall, this is a thorough and informative analysis of current ID research literature. My only recommendation for future posts like this one is to include in-text citations and a list of references for your sources.
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