In this new series of posts I’ll give an overview of what instructional design looks like in process. Over the course of the 2018 – 2019 academic year I partnered with Professor Anne Campbell a faculty member in Monterey who was interested in designing a 2 credit cross-listed class titled “Data Interpretation and Presentation.” The course was cross-listed between international education management and DPPG and ran the second half of the spring semester of 2019.
This project was the first experience for both Anne and I in working collaboratively on developing an online course. Over the course of the development period we came up with a number of structures that can be reproduced to guide the development of future online development cycles. In this series of posts I’ll share what occurred at each weekly meeting, tools that we created to help guide our development, and things we learned along the way.
Meeting 1
During the initial meeting we discussed the general concept of the course including topics such as how online curriculum is viewed by other faculty members, who is the intended audience for the course, what curriculum currently existed for the course (none), and what curricular need the course intended to address.
We also discussed the pedagogy for the course which would focus on a project-based component as well as the overall timeline for development and deployment of the course. The ideal launch date was determined to be mid-March and at that point we set to work identifying what the weekly workload amount would be based on that timeline and how that would impact the design of the course. Components such as synchronous and asynchronous time commitments were discussed. Our draft timeline is below.
We set up a weekly meeting time to commence in a month after Anne had completed some outside commitments.
Timeline/Checklist – Launch Date – 3/25
| What? | Timeline – complete in | |
| ✓ | Goals/Objectives identified | November |
| Readings & course texts identified | November | |
| ✓ | Determine # and grouping of modules | November |
| ✓ | Grading scheme set & added | November |
| ✓ | Determine structure of course/home page | November |
| ✓ | Design student feedback mechanism & schedule | December |
| ✓ | Design a communication plan (announcements, social media, email, ) | December |
| ✓ | List, schedule & plan synchronous sessions | December |
| Copyright/Fair Use review complete | December | |
| Activities identified | December | |
| ✓ | Assessments identified | December |
| ✓ | Start sequencing of activities, assessments & communications plan | December |
| Embed support materials into course and integrate into communication plan | December | |
| Review alignment of activities & assessments to course goals/objectives | December | |
| Complete sequencing of activities, assessments & communications plan | January | |
| Complete build out of activities & assessments in Canvas | January | |
| Testing of course content | February 18th start** | |
| Set up open office hours & sign ups | February | |
| Modifications to content & retesting | February | |
| Introduce yourself – discussion board – make it creative | March – 2 weeks prior | |
| Final check | March – 2 weeks prior | |
| Video/warm welcome | March – 1 week prior |