Course Design
Theory of Course Design
The best Instructional Design theory you choose must align with the needs of your online learners and your client's learning objectives. The subject matter also plays a pivotal role in the process. The key is to identify your client's expectations and needs beforehand so that you can determine which theory supports the learning behaviors and desired outcomes.
In my practice as an Instructional Designer for higher education courses, I have built most courses using the QM Rubric. Quality Matters (QM), a non-profit faculty-driven course assurance organization, provides instructors with tools and processes to continuously improve their online and blended courses through a review process organized around a research-based rubric of QM Course Design Standards. QM courses promote learning experiences which are supported by the critical course components working together: well-planned learning objectives, assessment, instructional materials, learning activities, course technology, and accessibility.
When developing training classes for faculty and instructors in Higher Education, I often use the ADDIE theory of Instructional Design. The five phases—Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation—represent a dynamic, flexible guideline for building effective training and performance support tools.
Course Tour
The video gives a tour of the Phlebotomy class I designed and built with Workforce Training at LC State. The class is hybrid delivery, with traditional coursework happening in Canvas, then the students meet in person to do learning labs.
The course did not go through a formal QM review process, but all the principles of the QM rubric were used during the course design.
Video coming soon!
Course Tour - Faculty and Designer
The video is a tour of a course that I teach online at Lewis-Clark State college. I starting teaching it in Spring 2024, and when designing I considered:
Audience: NS-150 is often taken by students who are not "science" students. The course needs to introduce students to all the areas of Natural Science.
Learning goals: Since the course is part of core curriculum, I stayed with the established goals of the course. The goals are laid out in the syllabus.
Course structure: to build consistency in the course structure, I used a weekly course structure. This allows students to easily locate and access all content, assignments, discussion boards, and know that due dates fall on the same day of the week for each weekly module.
Content: Each weekly modules has content pages, with some of the content being taken from a previous version of the course. The content includes text, images, and links to websites with additional information.
Assessment: Each week includes a quiz on the content and reading. There is also a current news assignment each week that familiarizes students with how science plays a role in everyday, current life.
Accessibility: All content in the course is accessible to all users. All videos have time-synced and punctuated closed captions. Documents are screen-reader compliant. All images have alt-text, and all links are descriptive hyperlinks.