A couple of reflections to start off our Monday evening –

First of all, I will be going through the first half of your presentations on instructional design and development in the next couple days.  I am also going to be looking at the current state of your ePortfolios.  Each of you will be provided with detailed feedback on how those elements are shaping up.  I will not, however, be applying the rubrics to either.  You will achieve points after submitting the instructional design and development presentation after it is due on Sunday.

Couple reminders – be sure to continue to work on that ePortfolio in general and the eLearning glossary.

Thank you for the time and effort you put into the note-taking.  I could tell that for many of you it was truly a reflective experience that got you some ideas for changes to make either in your own online courses that you are teaching, or in other educational experiences where such things might apply.

Because we’re continuing with Part II of the Instructional Design & Development Module this week, I collated some thoughts (or “curated” – ha ha!) from your thoughts to share with the group.

• Sometimes faculty are called upon to take on ALL the roles of the entire design and development team.  Are institutions ready to support this?  Are faculty trained sufficiently to do such things effectively?
• The 200 to 1 statistic is not accurate.  That’s for certain types of eLearning.  I’d say it has more to do with a combination of your expertise in D & D, your expertise in your subject matter, how much content you have, what format it is in, what your planned activities are, etc.
• This is just Sasha here.  One of my pet peeves is when there is clearly 1.5 – 2x the amount of work in an online course than in a face-to-face course.  The irony is that the online environment really allows you to be highly targeted in what you have your learners do, and how you choose to assess them.
• Designing an online IS way more time-consuming up front.  OR is it?  Shouldn’t even a face-to-face course be intentionally designed?  How many face-to-face courses have you been in where the assignments seemed only peripherally related to the reading material, and the discussions were on something else entirely?  What are the objectives?  How are they being taught?  How are we focusing on learning and teaching individually and institutionally?
• Just because there is a rubric does not mean it is a good one.  There are good rubrics and bad rubrics.  My least favorite is the 4 – 3 – 2 – 1.  When you use words like “most” or “several” or “appreciate” in rubrics you may as well not have one.  If you’re attempting to quantify things, be specific – 3 sources, 2 discussion board responses, etc.  If you want students to appreciate something, forget it.  You can’t make anyone appreciate anything.  Instead, ask them to describe how it applies to something, etc., and then create criteria around that.  The question to ask is “What is proof of the achievement of these objectives?”
• The person who does the work is the person who does the learning.  So let the students do it:) – Sasha