First, apologies for this dispatch coming out a little late today! This Monday has been a SLOW starter for me.
Hopefully, everyone has begun to work their way through the Designing for Education module. As you continue to think about the lessons we might learn about and from traditional instructional design practices, I encourage you to try to find connections to whichever June module you completed. What does it mean to incorporate care into the design of your classes? How does traditional ID inform our choices about technology? And how do those traditional practices impact the creation of online learning experiences? As we work through this module, we can start to think about when these traditional approaches align with our practices and when they diverge. Share your thoughts and check in with each other about these questions.
If you’re looking for readings this week, I would suggest starting with Peter Goodyear’s Teaching as Design. Goodyear wrote this piece in 2015, suggesting that schools need to adopt a more “designerly” approach to teaching: “universities that find better ways of supporting the design work of their teaching staff will be well placed to meet the changing needs of students.” From there, take a look at Robin’s article Never forget: your course is not only yours. I love how this piece encourages us to think of the design of education more broadly, as an institutional feature that impacts our mission: “We need to shift our mindset to think of course design as a series of acts that collectively bring our college or university into being. Therefore, we need to pause in the act of course design and consider: what does my university need to be?”
If you’re feeling up for starting to apply what you’ve been thinking and learning about to a bigger design challenge, you might tackle the Defining/Designing activity this week.
Finally, there’s a lot of great stuff to peruse from others in the summer cohort. A few highlights:
- I love Sarah’s reflection on whether or not we are using precision-based approaches to our design practices or whether we are “saturation bombing” in the hope of reaching as many students as possible. If that phrase seems out of place in a higher education classroom, that’s part of the complexity of the reading (ID”s origins in military contexts).
- In response to the Complex Knitting reading, Bryn suggests “good design should probably always push us and our processes should be able to absorb added complexity.” How do we develop design practices that make space for this kind of growth and adaptation?
- Over in our discussion on the question about what design means to you, we have lots of great and differing takes. Minna points out the importance of meaningful feedback from students in order to ensure the design is working the way it’s intended. Becca values the playfulness of the design process and how it “should lean into creativity and innovation,” And Rebecca reminds us that design can be both a product and a process. If you haven’t weighed in on this question yet, join the conversation with your own thoughts or feedback on others’.
- Finally, some great activities and reflections are being shared across people’s portfolios. While reflecting on last month’s work, Dr. No reminds us that ” good instructional design starts with the learner, not just the content.” And check out Kasey’s “conversation” with Backward Design. I love their response to this activity because it reminds us that often it takes time for us (and our students!) to develop a deeper understanding of the practices we’re trying to embrace.
That’s it for this week!